Brown Girl Dreaming

Title:  Brown Girl Dreaming

Author:  Jacqueline Woodson

Publication Information:  Nancy Paulsen Books. 2014. 336 pages.

ISBN:  0399252517 / 978-0399252518

Book Source:  I read this book after the announcement of the National Book Awards.

Favorite Quote:  "Each day a new world opens itself up to you. And all the worlds you are ... gather into one world called You where You decide what each world and each story and each ending will finally be."

Jacqueline Woodson was born in Ohio in 1963. Her childhood was spent between Greenville, South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York. In other words, Jacqueline Woodson grew up in the heart of the civil rights movement.

She writes for an audience of children and adolescents. Her works have won many awards such as Newberry Honors and the Coretta Scott King Award which recognizes books about the African-American experience that are written for a youth audience. In 2014, she was the US nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award which recognizes a living author for their "lasting contributions to children's literature," and in 2005, she won the Margaret A. Edwards Award which recognizes an author and a specific body of his or her work for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature. This book, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award for young people's literature in 2014.

This book is Jacqueline Woodson's biography told through poetry. At a personal level, it is a story of childhood, At a family level, it is a story of births, marriage, divorce, death, and everything in between; it also captures Woodson's upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness. At a societal level, it tells her story of growing up African American during the 1960s and in the heart of the Civil Rights movement. With her traveling back and forth between South Carolina and New York, the book captures the juxtaposition between the North and the South on civil rights issues.

Each poem is a vignette of a moment; together, the moments create a vivid picture of a childhood and of a turbulent time in US history. Part 1 is about her birth and time in Ohio. Part 2 is about the years in Greenville, South Carolina. Part 3 is about life in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City. Part 4 is about the straddle between South Caroline and New York.

The vignette approach reminds me of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. The individual vignettes are only a page or two long, with brief titles like "uncle odell," "night bus," "the blanket," "leaving greenville," "Because we're witnesses," "lessons", and "the stories I tell." (Note: The book does not capitalize titles.) Sprinkled throughout are 10 very brief poems titled "how to listen" #1 - #10. These seem to capture her progression as a writer - remembering, observing, thinking, and writing.

Although written for an adolescent audience, this book grabbed me to the point that I read almost the entire book in one sitting. My reaction at the end - Wow. Written with restraint and in a few, well chosen constructs, the book beautifully paints a history. For a younger audience, I would hope the book would be accompanied by a conversation about the history that the book describes but does not explain - Kingdom Hall, Angela Davis, Black Panthers, Woolworth's, Langston Hughes, and the phrase "deep in my heart I do believe" among other things. For a younger reader to fully appreciate the content, the conversation is necessary. However, even without the conversation, this book is an interesting take on biography, grabbing attention perhaps more than a fact-based narrative of a life.

Recommended reading for young adults and adults alike!

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Another Brooklyn

Title:  Another Brooklyn

Author:  Jacqueline Woodson

Publication Information:  Amistad. 2016. 192 pages.

ISBN:  0062359983 / 978-0062359988

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through Edelweiss free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "For a long time, my mother wasn't dead yet."

Favorite Quote:  "This is memory."

I was introduced to Jacqueline Woodson's work with the book Brown Girl Dreaming. I read it in one sitting and absolutely loved it. With a few well chosen words, she managed to depict an entire history. So, when this book was announced, I immediately requested it.

Many similarities exist between the two books. Both tell a story with an episodic approach much like The House on Mango Street and A House of My Own by Sandra Cisneros. Both depict a history of a time and a place; one captures the 1960s civil rights movements, and the other tackles life in the projects in the 1970s New York. Both books reflect a personal and a societal story capturing the events and social constructs of the time. Both take a non-chronological, stream of consciousness approach, providing glimpses that the reader must put together into a whole. Both books are very short, easily read in one sitting. Both stories have a strong female main character coming of age.

Some major differences also exist. Brown Girl Dreaming is biographical while this book is fictional even though it reads like a memoir. Brown Girl Dreaming is geared for a young adult audience while this book is classified as adult fiction. Brown Girl Dreaming is written as poetry, while this book is more of a narrative.

August's Brooklyn is "another Brooklyn." The story is told from August's perspective as an adult looking back on her childhood. The story in a nutshell is as follows. August starts life in Tennessee. One day, her father moves with August and her brother from Tennessee to the "foreign world of Brooklyn." Why does their mother not come with them? What do the children believe, and what is the actual truth? The manner in which this alters August's life becomes a major theme of the book. The manner in which August's reactions differs from that of her brother become the two counterpoints of the story.

In Brooklyn, August finds a new world and a sisterhood of teenage friendships - Sylvia, Angela, and Gigi. The girls go through "growing up" together - dreams, parental restraints, first kisses and more, economic differences, and their own disputes - while surrounded by the life of poverty and struggle that is August's Brooklyn in the 1970s. Then, life happens, and people scatters.

That is the storyline, but that is not how the story is told. The book is lyrical in nature and not chronological. In bits and pieces, life is revealed. This streaming, episodic approach is less successful here than in other books. At times, I find myself lost in August's story and its emotions. At other times, however, I find myself focused on the structure of the book and lose that connection with the story itself.

That occurs also perhaps because the book is very brief. The hardcover edition states 192 pages; however, the actual length of the text seems considerably shorter. As such, the book seems to only graze the surface of many of the topics it introduces - drugs, teenage pregnancy, suicide, poverty, grief, and friendship. The moments that the book touches emotions are gripping, but then it seems to slide away, distancing the reader along with it. The book is still beautifully written and an emotional story, but it just seems to miss the intensity of Brown Girl Dreaming.

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Recipe for Disaster

Title:  Recipe for Disaster: 40 Superstar Stories of Sustenance and Survival

Author:  Alison Riley

Publication Information:  Chronicle Books. 2023. 176 pages.

ISBN:  1797212826 / 978-1797212821

Rating:   ★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "While I am quite fluent in disasters, when it comes to cooking I am a person who needs a recipe."

Favorite Quote:  "Food is integral to our emotional lives, but while we plan, choose, and prepare special things when we revel and commemorate, on those days when there is less to celebrate, we still have to eat."

From the book description:  "This book reminds us of the value of our experiences, good and bad, and their capacity to bring levity and purpose to the moments we need them most. Recipe for Disaster was conceived through the deeply held belief that there is humor, liberation, and universal truth to be found through the exchange of these stories."

Food memories is an idea that resonates with most people. Memories of both joyful times, sad ones, and, as this book's title suggests, disastrous ones is one we can all relate to. Mom's soup when I was sick as a child. The fallback, easy, comfort meal I make when I am tired. The meal we look forward to after coming home from a vacation having indulged. The birthday dinner my child asked for.

Food - the thought, the smell, the taste - can conjure memories. Of people. Of a time. Of a place. Of who we were at that time and place. Comfort food gets its name for a very obvious reason. The dictionary defines comfort food as "food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being."

This book includes forty stories by forty contributors of food memories. The theme, as the title points out, is disaster. With humor and the perspective of hindsight, the contributors share their stories. The contributors include Samantha Irby, Alice Waters, Bowen Yang, Michael W. Twitty, Cey Adams, Chelsea Peretti, Simon Doonan, Meshell Ndegeocello, Brian Lehrer, Gabrielle Hamilton, Becca Blackwell, Jacqueline Woodson, Sarah Silverman, Raul Lopez, Thundercat, and more. Some names I am familiar with, and some not.

The titles of the stories - Under the Sea, A Mess for a Moment, A Soft Spot, Staples, to name a few - do not tell me much about what "disaster" may be the heart of the story. Some do give a nod to the food - pizza, soup, potatoes, beans, etc. Each is only a couple of pages long. The book is easy to pick up and put down. As with most book of this nature, some stories resonate with me more than others. Each reader will find some perhaps that speak to them.

Each story is accompanied by a recipe - some basic and some more complex. The book is not as much about the recipes as the stories. Nevertheless, the recipes are included.

An interesting, relatable premise that leads to an interesting collection. My favorite part, though, may be that cover which made me smile and pick up the book in the first place.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Title:  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Author:  Maya Angelou

Publication Information:  Bantam Books (my edition). 1969 (original). 246 pages.

ISBN:  0553279378 / 978-0553279375

Book Source:  I read this book as a selection for a local book club.

Opening Sentence:  "I hadn't so much forgot as I couldn't bring myself to remember."

Favorite Quote:  "See, you don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking."

I have long been familiar with Maya Angelou's work through her work as a civil rights activist and through the numerous times her work is cited by others. I have long found much of what she wrote inspirational. I have bookmarked, re-read, and shared many of her quotes.

This is the first time, however, that I have read one of her biographies in its entirety. In her life, Maya Angelou wrote seven autobiographies, detailing different aspects of her life. I Know Why the  Caged Bird Sings is the first of the seven. The book was originally published in 1969, when Maya Angelou was forty-one years old. It tells of her life from childhood to the age of seventeen - the years 1928 to 1945.

This is the story of a child growing up from Missouri to Arkansas to California and back again. The book is an episodic story, much like The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and like Another Brooklyn or Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. All the books are the coming of age stories of young women if difficult social and economic circumstances. So it goes with this book.

The story is a harsh and sad one, dealing with poverty, racism, abandonment, rape, sexual abuse, and teenage pregnancy. There are moments of joy and love also, but mostly, the book is a series of sad truths told in an explicit, graphic manner. For that reason, the book has found its way on and off of school curricula. In other words, parents, use your judgment as to the appropriate age for your child to read this book. This is not an easy book to read and an even more difficult one to discuss. Yet, it is an important one for this history is part of the fabric of our nation.

The only other Maya Angleou work I have read in its entirety is Letter to My Daughter. That book is a collection of essays based on her own life that offer advice for a young woman growing up. Now knowing read the biographic background adds a whole new level of understanding to those letters and to her other words I hear quoted. That book seeks to inspire and educate; this one almost seems to want to shock.

That is perhaps the biggest surprise of this book. I expect to find the inspiration I have always found in Maya Angelou's words, and I don't, at least not in the words themselves. This book is more about shaking people's comfort level and forcing a look at the harshness of life that some have to face. The events related are more tragic than inspirational. The writing is dark, matching the tone of the events themselves. The story is told with an emotional detachment that is perhaps necessary for survival in those circumstances. No, the inspiration to be found in this book is not in the writing. However, Maya Angelou had courage to live this life, the courage to move forward from the events described, and the courage to tell the story in such a public way. That is where the inspiration lies.

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Harbor Me

Title:  Harbor Me

Author:  Jacqueline Woodson

Publication Information:  Nancy Paulsen Books. 2018. 192 pages.

ISBN:  0399252525 / 978-0399252525

Book Source:  I received this book through the Penguin First to Read program free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "We think they took my papi."

Favorite Quote:  "My uncle says that when you tell stories, it's like letting out all the scared inside of you ... It's like you help stuff make sense."

Harbor Me brings the headlines of today and the fear they generate to life through the eyes of six children, each with their own perspective on the world.

Haley is biracial; her mother is deceased, and her father is incarcerated. She is being raised by an uncle, but now her father may be returning.

Amari is young man of color, learning that the laws may be the same for all but the rules are different for people of color. Assumptions are made and actions may be taken by others based only on the color of skin.

Ashton's family is impacted by economic changes, but he is learning that even without affluence, white privilege exists.

Esteban is a child of immigrants, whose father is picked up by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "Before, you used to hear the word immigration and it sounded like everything you ever believed in. It sounded like feliz cumpleaños and merry Christmas and welcome home. but now you hear it and you get scared because it sounds like a word that makes you want to disappear. it sounds like someone getting stolen away from you."

The dynamic of the book is a contrived one to my adult eyes. These six students are in a "special" class. The reason and the "specialness" of the class is never made quite clear. Their teacher provides them with an outlet. Once a week, the six students are allowed to meet in a room with no teachers present. It is a time for them to talk. How and why this comes about is never made clear. I would like to envision that in the background are caring teachers and counselors wanting the best for these children and working hard to make a positive impact in their work. Regardless of how it comes about, the point is that this is a safe space. From a child's perspective, that is what matters.

The "harbor" in this title has many contexts. The cover depicts the children at the harbor with the Statue of Liberty in the distance. The harbor is literal in this New York City setting. The symbolism of Lady Liberty, of course, is the figurative harbor and the symbol of hope and freedom to so many. The ARTT room - A Room to Talk room - becomes a safe harbor for these students in the middle of their school day and their tumultuous lives. The group of six in effect becomes a safety net for each other. They harbor each other, providing understanding and empathy.

The fears are clear as are the lessons. Providing children with diverse books in which they can perhaps see themselves is a service to our diverse community. Putting the so often unspoken emotions and fears of pre-teens and teenagers into words has the potential to change lives. Providing children with a reminder that a safe harbor exists is necessary.

This book is a clear commentary on the recent changes and events in the United States. The book is also a statement that healing the divides is possible if we take the time to seek and understand through civil, sincere dialogue.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.