Brown Girl Dreaming

 

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

Memoir/Poetry

2014 Puffin Books

Finished on August 19, 2020

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, 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 1970s, 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, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

I wound up reading Brown Girl Dreaming at the same time I listened to the audio edition of Woodson's novel, Red at the Bone. I'm not sure anything I say about either book will do them justice, so bear with me.

Brown Girl Dreaming is both a beautiful memoir and an engaging history lesson, expressed entirely in free verse. I have only read one other book written in this literary style (The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus) and while it may initially feel awkward, it isn't long before the story begins to flow and the reader becomes enveloped in the lush prose.

south carolina at war

Because we have a right, my grandfather tells us--

we are sitting at his feet and the story tonight is

why people are marching all over the South--

to walk and sit and dream wherever we want.

First they brought us here.

Then we worked for free. Then it was 1863,

and we were supposed to be free but we weren't.

And that's why people are so mad.

And it's true, we can't turn on the radio

without hearing about the marching.

We can't go to downtown Greenville without

seeing the teenagers walking into stores, sitting

where brown people still aren't allowed to sit

and getting carried out, their bodies limp,

their faces calm.

This is the way brown people have to fight,

my grandfather says.

You can't just put your fist up. You have to insist

on something

gently. Walk toward a thing

slowly.

But be ready to die,

my grandfather say,

for what is right.

Be ready to die, my grandfather says,

for everything you believe in.

And none of us can imagine death

but we try to imagine it anyway.

Even my mother joins the fight.

When she thinks our grandmother

isn't watching she sneaks out

to meet the cousins downtown, but just as

she's stepping through the door,

her good dress and gloves on, my grandmother says,

Now don't go getting arrested.

And Mama sounds like a little girl when she says,

I won't.

More than a hundred years, my grandfather says,

and we're still fighting for the free life

we're supposed to be living.

So there's a war going on in South Carolina

and even as we play

and plant and preach and sleep, we are a part of it.

Because you're colored, my grandfather says.

And just as good and bright and beautiful and free

as anybody.

And nobody colored in the South is stopping,

my grandfather says,

until everybody knows what's true.

Woodson's memoir is categorized for young readers (ages 10 and up) and yet it is just as astute and perceptive as most of the adult memoirs I've read over the years. A little over 300 pages, Brown Girl Dreaming can easily be read in a single day, but I chose to read a little at a time, going back to reread a page or two, savoring the story of Woodson's childhood.

what i believe

I believe in God and evolution.

I believe in the Bible and the Qur'an.

I believe in Christmas and the New World.

I believe that there is good in each of us

no matter who we are or what we believe in.

I believe in the words of my grandfather.

I believe in the city and the South

the past and the present.

I believe in Black people and White people coming

 together. 

I believe in nonviolence and "Power to the People."

I believe in my little brother's pale skin and my own

 dark brown.

I believe in my sister's brilliance and the too-easy

 books I love to read.

I believe in my mother on a bus and Black people

 refusing to ride.

I believe in good friends and good food.

I believe in johnny pumps and jump ropes,

Malcolm and Martin, Buckeyes and Birmingham,

writing and listening, bad words and good words -

I believe in Brooklyn!

I believe in one day and someday and this

 perfect moment called Now.

Highly recommend! The timely memoir is worthy of the numerous awards and accolades received and is one that I will read again and again. I'm especially eager to listen to the audiobook, which is narrated by the author. 

The triumph of Brown Girl Dreaming is not just in how well Woodson tells us the story of her life, but in how elegantly she writes words that make us want to hold those carefully crafted poems close, apply them to our lives, reach into the mirror she holds up and makes the words and the worlds she explores our own. This is a book full of poems that cry out to be learned by heart. These are poems that will, for years to come, be stored in our bloodstream. ~ The New York Times Book Review