Book Review: Brown Girl Dreaming

 

Meet the book...

Book: Woodson, Jacqueline. (2014). Brown Girl Dreaming. Penguin Group.

Lexile: 990L (10-14)

Summary: Through free verse poems, Woodson traces her life growing up as an African American child between South Carolina and New York, amid the Civil Rights movement. She recounts her memories and experiences as a child, the games she played with friends, and struggles with reading but love for words. Her book is broken down into three parts, marking the major life changes for her young self. It is a renowned work, winning several awards including the Coretta Scott King book award in 2015 (Penguin Random House 2020). 

I’m a big fan of books in verse, but have never read one as beautiful as Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming. Woodson describes her childhood memories in vivid detail, with a minimal word count, that puts the reader in her shoes. You can smell her grandmother’s cooking, hear the crickets chirping, and feel the cool water of the street fire hydrant (johnny pump, she calls it). She submerses you in her memories, both beautiful and sad. 

I collected so many quotes reading Brown Girl Dreaming, but a few really jumped out at me. A huge theme of the book was life as an African American woman (girl at the time), in the opposite states of South Carolina and New York, and trying to understand racism as a young child. One quote stood out to me for its simplicity yet powerful message.

While Woodson and her siblings sit with her grandmother, they ask about why their neighbors are marching and what would make “people want to live together” (Woodson pg. 88).

 Here her grandmother says: “People have to want it, that’s all.

We all have the same dream...to live equal in a country that’s supposed to be the land of the free (pg. 89).

I set the book down after reading this, full of emotions. What an obvious concept, but frustratingly isn’t enough for people blinded by hate and ignorance. These people are often the same people praising America for being the great “land of the free”, too. I wish we could make this book a reading requirement for anyone living in America and then we all have to take a quiz to make sure we understood it...

Another theme I saw was finding your own identity amongst your surroundings. Woodson details early on that her sister Dell was a voracious reader at a young age, brilliant and beloved by teachers. Her brother Hope was a mad scientist, always experimenting and pulling things apart to see how they worked. Woodson was the story teller, recounting finding a fresh notebook and treasuring its blank pages for a week before writing something inside. However, she struggled with writing and reading; her teachers would compare her to Dell, assuming she would be “just as brilliant” as her older sister. They would tell her to not read the picture books she picked, to read “at her level” while all Woodson wanted to do was relish the words in front of her, take her time to really understand them. Thankfully her mother let her pick whatever books she liked from their weekly visits to the library, supporting her love of reading.

Woodson mentions she picked out a picture book with a brown boy on the cover, the same age as her:

“If someone had taken that book out of my hand

said, You’re too old for this

maybe 

I’d never have believed

that someone who looked like me

could be in the pages of the book 

that someone who looked like me

 had a story. (pg. 228).

If I could scream this from the rooftops of schools that require children read in their lexile, I would! I’ve had kids excited about a book, only to be disappointed that it was below their lexile level and sadly hand it to me to reshelve. If a child is eager to read, no matter the subject, let them read! While the text might not be challenging for them, there may be a message or a character that helps them better understand their world. I understand the importance of lexile for readers who struggle, but kids with higher ranges should be able to read whatever they want!  LET THE CHILDREN READ. 

Brown Girl Dreaming is a breathtaking memoir, tackling the wrongs of racism through the soft, sweet memories of childhood all the while making you reminisce for something you never experienced. I recommend this book to everyone (seriously!! Read it!!). But for strategic reader’s advisory purposes, I would recommend this book to older students who may struggle with school or reading to help them see that even award winning authors like Woodson weren’t the best at school. But she kept trying, and she grew up to master those words that were once barriers for her. Written in verse, and along with Woodson’s addictive imagery, this is a quick read that I think children would relate to and understand more about the past (and present) of racism and the Civil Rights movement, but also the importance of embracing your uniqueness.

Honestly I can’t praise this book enough. It’s just perfect and sweet and moving and truly gives “all the feels”. I’d read a few of Woodson’s picture books before this and had put off reading Brown Girl Dreaming but am so happy I didn’t put it off any longer.

🦇❣

Readalikes:

School Age: The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

While this is a picture book, it's a short and sweet one by Jacqueline Woodson following a girl's first day at a new school and the fears of being new and different, but finding courage in spite of these things.

Tweens: Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

A novel in verse, this book tells the story of a young Syrian girl named Jude who comes to America with her pregnant mother to live with her uncle during a time of war and unrest. Jude's experiences and hope is told beautiful through free form poetry; while this is fiction, it deals with many real events in everyday life. This was one of my favorite assigned readings from past classes and made such an impression on me; usually a slow reader, I read this in one sitting!

Teens: It’s Trevor Noah: Born A Crime (Young Reader’s Edition)

Adapted from comedian Trevor Noah’s original memoir of the same title, Born a Crime details Noah’s life growing up in South Africa under Apartheid, when it was illegal for mixed-race children to exist (which Noah is). Another title in my TBR pile, reviews say this book is equal parts funny and sad. I would recommend this title to older readers, as it deals with more explicit examples of racism and the challenges (sometimes violent) that follows it.

Resources

Penguin Random House. (2020). Brown Girl Dreaming. Retrieved from:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/304851/brown-girl-dreaming-by-jacqueline-woodson/