“And somehow, one day, it’s just there / speckled black-and white, the paper / inside smelling like something I could fall right into, / live there — inside those clean white pages.” Jacqueline Woodson’s childhood unfolds in poems that beautifully reveal details of her early life and her slow but gradually certain understanding that words and stories and writing were essential to her. Her older sister was shining smart. One of her brothers could sing wonderfully. She would come to realize words were her smart, her singing, her special thing. Woodson writes about growing up in Greenville, South Carolina, and then Brooklyn, New York, living with family members who were full of love and expectation, from her grandparents to her mother to her siblings, aunts and uncles. She sometimes felt she stood out — a northerner in the south; a southerner in the north; a Jehovah’s Witness knocking on doors. Experiences that shaped her came from within and beyond her family: “ Don’t wait for your school to teach you , my uncle says, / about the revolution. It’s happening in the streets. ” And later, “This moment, this here, this right now, is my teacher / saying / You’re a writer, as she holds the poem I am just beginning.” Ten poems titled “How to Listen” reveal another essential element of her story because she is also that: a listener, a recorder, an observer, writing something down even when she doesn’t understand it and trusting that “The knowing will come.” An album of black-and-white photographs and an author’s note round out this exquisite, quietly inspiring volume. (Age 10 and older)

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed author of Red at the Bone tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing poems.

A NEWBERY HONOR BOOK • WINNER OF THE CORETTA SCOTT KING BOOK AWARD • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST MIDDLE GRADE BOOK OF THE CENTURY

“Moving and resonant . . . captivating.”—The Wall Street Journal

I am born in Ohio but
the stories of South Carolina already run
like rivers
through my veins.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Jacqueline Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 70s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, providing a glimpse into a child’s soul as she finds her voice through writing and searches for her place in the world.

Teeming with feeling and deeply personal, Brown Girl Dreaming is the groundbreaking chronicle of Woodson’s journey to storytelling, and a beautiful portrayal of physical, emotional, and spiritual growth.