Jacqueline Woodson: Author

What's the difference between
a story...
and a lie?
Young Jacqueline Woodson loved to tell stories and watch her friends' eyes open wide. Some people called her stories lies.

Jacqueline loved to write from an early age. Sometimes teachers and family members didn't believe she had written her poems and stories because they were "too good" to have been written by a young girl.

When Jacqueline Woodson was born in Ohio in 1963, her father wanted to name her Jack- after himself. Her mother insisted on Jacqueline. She had an older brother (named after his grandfather, Hope), an older sister and a younger brother.

Jacqueline's sister, one year ahead of her in school, was remarkably gifted, reading long books quickly. Teachers were surprised that Jacqueline was so different, writing on her report cards that she wasn't trying hard enough. She preferred to read slowly, savoring the words.

Growing up, she moved back and forth between Greenville, South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York, experiencing two different ways of life.

Brown Girl Dreaming is her 2014 memoir in verse that won many awards. While she was growing up in the 60's, the civil rights movement was taking root in the south (her grandmother still took them to sit in the back of the bus to "avoid trouble") and the black pride movement was growing in the north.

In Brown Girl Dreaming, we see Jacqueline as a child developing into a writer. She created her first book- called Butterflies- from poems written on bits of paper stapled together like fluttering wings. (It got ruined in the laundry when she left it in her pocket!)

You can almost taste some of the food in Brown Girl Dreaming, enhancing the sense of place and culture. In one South Carolina scene, Jacqueline and her grandfather buy lemon chiffon ice cream from a neighbor who sells sweets. They savor it as it melts in the heat on the walk back to their house. Another scene from New York: best friends Jackie and Maria run outside their Brooklyn apartments at dinnertime to trade plates of their mother's food, covered in tin foil. Jackie is as excited about Maria's mother's Puerto Rican chicken and rice dish as Maria is about the southern cuisine served up by Jackie's mother (even if the green beans are from a can and the cornbread is from a mix).

At Adelphi University, she majored in English, ran track, and did some cheer leading. She graduated with a BA in 1985 and started her first job with an educational materials company, where colleagues noticed her writing.

The Author's Books by Age Level

Some of her YA books

• Brown Girl Dreaming
• I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This
• Locomotion
• After Tupac and D Foster
• Beneath a Meth Moon
• Miracle's Boys
• Hush
• Behind You

Selected Awards and Honors

• Newbery Medal
• Coretta Scott King Award
• National Book Award
• Langston Hughes Medal
• Young People's Poet Laureate
• Margaret A. Edwards Award
• National Ambassador for Young People's Literature

One of her books took two weeks to write. The next book took four years to write. Usually she is working on a few books at the same time.

Jacqueline's novels for young adults tackle some serious subject matter: drug abuse, domestic violence, molestation, crime and incarceration. They also cover positive topics such as friendship, family, and finding purpose. Her characters represent some of the people who don't receive much recognition in society.

"It's interesting to me when people say I write about 'tough issues' or that the issues are 'edgy' because, for me, they are issues we talk about in my community everyday. It's the things that are important to us that pretty much change the course of our lives." -JW

Jacqueline was brought up in the Jehovah's Witness faith. This made coming out as a lesbian more difficult because, according to the religion, a gay family member could be "disfellowshipped." But Jacqueline's family refused to disown her.

Today she lives in Brooklyn, NY with her son and daughter. She travels around the country speaking to kids and teens as the 2018 Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

"If you know where you've been, you'll know where you're going."

References

Photo Credits