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This book was such a masterpiece! I read it in one sitting, completely addicted! It was such a poignant, heart-warming and beautifully written story exploring the past and the present, relationships and life forming decisions, all spun together into an intricate web.  The story starts in 2001 at the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone, but from there Jacqueline Woodson takes us both forward and backward in time to uncover the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of the present family members.
Each person got to tell their story in a chapter each, which was such a brilliant way to tell the story from different perspectives. It was so impressive how Jacqueline Woodson managed to flesh out all of the characters in just those few pages! She really made them authentic and lovable people with emotions, fear and love, explaining the backgrounds and decisions that made them arrive at this very moment and the tolls they’d paid for it. Even though it’s quite a short book, there were so many themes and issued covered; from race and class, to identity, love, loss, life and death. It shows how the past keeps continuing to form the present due to family history, but also due to historical events such as the 1921 Tulsa massacres. But the beautiful poetic writing style never made it feel crowded, every word in this book was there for a reason and most of the past events were hinted at rather than lengthy described. All in all, this coming-of-age, inter-generational black family drama is simply magnificent! A poignantly painted picture of tragedy and hope, heartbreak and joy, and how the decisions we make at a young age can define us forever. I cannot recommend it enough! Rating: 5 stars Get your own copy: Bookshop.org Amazon Book Depository Author info: Jacqueline Woodson
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Brown Girl Dreaming is a beautiful memoir of Jacqueline Woodson’s upbringing in South Carolina and Brooklyn written in verse. The entire book flows in dreamy poetry as she describes how growing up African American in the 60s and 70s in the US wasn’t always easy, but how she finds happiness in writing and starts to figure out her place in the world.  “How can I explain to anyone that stories are like air to me, I breathe them in and let them out over and over again.”
This is one of the first books I’ve read that’s been written in verse, but I loved it immediately. The writing style was perfect for this story. Each poem was like a snapshot of a moment from Jacqueline Woodson’s past, like an extracted memory stored in a bottle and revealed like the silvery, hair-like wisps in Albus Dumbledore’s Pensieve, but read together, the poems created a complete, vivid and intimate description of her childhood that made this book so incredible, emotional and heart-warming. Growing up, Jacqueline Woodson’s time was divided amongst Ohio, South Carolina, and later, New York (Brooklyn). Each area provided a different experience and a vastly different culture, which made this book such a rich description of the growth of the civil rights movement across a variety of social settings and geographic locales. Through her eyes as a child, noticing how the adults walked, talked and dreamed, she manages to make the subtle differences in the South versus the North clear without having to point it out explicitly to us readers. “Even the silence has a story to tell you. Just listen. Listen.” It wasn’t until after I finished it and was about to write my review that I realized that this book is rated middle grade. It is absolutely well accessible for middle grade readers, but I can guarantee that adult readers will enjoy this wonderful, evocative and impactful story just as much. Overall, this was a very moving and thought-provoking story that raised awareness and provided so much insight to really important and difficult topics, while also being joyful, beautiful and easy to read. I recommend it with all my heart to readers of any age! Rating: 5 stars Get your own copy: Bookshop.org Amazon Book Depository Author info: Jacqueline Woodson |
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December 2022
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