Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

     The book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is considered both a memoir and an autobiography. Also, the book was written in poem format; each chapter was a new poem. The book mainly talks about Jacqueline's childhood, mainly on how it was growing up black in the 1960's. Throughout her childhood she goes back in forth between South Carolina and New York. She explains how she never really knew where home was. She never felt completely at home in either place, it was always 50/50 with her. Jacqueline grew up in the same years of the Civil Right Movement. She writes about the struggles of growing up black and how big of an impact it had on her childhood. Although the book talks about the negativity in her childhood it also talks about her beautiful memories she shared with both sides of her family. She explicitly talks of both her mother and fathers side. She speaks of New York and South Carolina and the sacred memories she has there.
     I absolutely love this book! I'm usually not into nonfiction, biographies, memoir etc. but this book was absolutely beautiful! You didn't feel like you were reading a biography, you felt as if you were Jacqueline herself reliving all of her old memories. I can't even express how much I liked it. I read it twice because I liked it so much! She gives so much detail with her writing that you can easily imagine as if you were there with her. She talks of helping her grandfather garden, she uses such strong emotion with this one poem that it leaves my heart swelling. What I'm basically trying to say is that she literally put all my thoughts into words and made an amazing book. I'd recommend this book who likes to take their time reading. Since the book is in poem format, it might take you a while to digest the meaning of her words and poems. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but sometimes her poem get confusing if you don't take the time to analyze them and find out their meaning. I overall give this book a 10/10

Jacqueline and her family