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Brown Girl Dreaming

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By DeeDee

Brown Girl Dreaming
by Jacqueline Woodson
Penguin Group, 2014. Nonfiction. 336 p.

This is a memoir of the early childhood of the author.  She was born in Ohio in 1963, but her parents split up when she was very young and she went to live with her grandparents in South Carolina. There she was able to see and experience the under-currents of the Civil Rights Movement first hand.  Then, when she was school age, she moved to New York and learned to be a city girl. It will be interesting to children that Ms Woodson saw her sister as the bookish "good student," and her brother as a wiz at science, so she felt like the academically untalented one of the family. Yet she is the one who has become a famous author. The book is written in lyric free verse that paints vivid pictures of all Woodson's experiences.  It is not surprising that this book won a long list of awards, including the National Book Award and the Newbery Honor Medal. It is available in print, recorded book CD,  e-book, and e-audiobook. The audio version is read by the author.
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