Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Amanda Woodson (born February 12, 1963) is an American writer of books for children and young adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She accepted the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018 and the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2020. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020. During her early years she lived in Greenville, South Carolina, before moving to Brooklyn at about the age of seven. She also states where she lives in her autobiography, Brown Girl Dreaming. As a child, Woodson enjoyed telling stories and always knew she wanted to be a writer. Her favorite books when she was young were Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" and Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Writing career

After college, Woodson went to work for Kirchoff/Wohlberg, a children's publishing company. She helped to write the California standardized reading tests and caught the attention of Liza Pulitzer-Voges, a children's book agent at the same company. Although the partnership did not work out, it did get Woodson's first manuscript out of a drawer. She then enrolled in Bunny Gable's children's book writing class at The New School, where Bebe Willoughby, an editor at Delacorte, heard a reading from Last Summer with Maizon and requested the manuscript. Delacorte bought the manuscript, but Willoughby left the company before editing it and so Wendy Lamb took over and saw Woodson's first book published.

Inspirations Woodson split her youth between South Carolina and Brooklyn. In an interview with Jennifer M. Brown, she recounted how "The South was so lush and so slow-moving and so much about community. The city was thriving and fast-moving and electric. Brooklyn was so much more diverse: on the block where I grew up, there were German people, people from the Dominican Republic, people from Puerto Rico, African-Americans from the South, Caribbean-Americans, Asians."

Style Woodson is known for writing intricate details of physical landscapes into her books. She places boundaries everywhere—social, economic, physical, sexual, racial—then has her characters break through both the physical and psychological boundaries to create a strong and emotional story.

Teaching Woodson has, in turn, influenced many other writers, including An Na, who credits her as being her first writing teacher. While many of her characters are given labels that make them "invisible" to society, Woodson is most often writing about their search for self rather than a search for equality or social justice.

Red at the Bone (2019), a novel, weaves together stories of three generations of one Black family, including the trauma resulting from the Tulsa Race Massacre and the September 11 attacks.

Economic status The Dear One is notable for dealing with the differences between rich and poor within the black community.

In October 2020, Woodson won a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as a "Genius Grant." The MacArthur Foundation recognized her for "redefining children’s and young adult literature in works that reflect the complexity and diversity of the world we live in while stretching young readers’ intellectual abilities and capacity for empathy." Her books "evoke the hopefulness and power of human connection even as they tackle difficult issues."

Censorship Some of the topics covered in Woodson's books raise flags for many censors. Homosexuality, child abuse, harsh language and other content have led to issues with censorship. In an interview on NPR Woodson said that she uses very few curse words in her books and that the issues adults have with her subject matter say more about what they are uncomfortable with than it does what their students should be thinking about. She suggests that people look at the various outside influences teens have access to today, then compare that to the subject matter in her books.

Awards and honors

1995 Coretta Scott King Honor for I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This 1996 Coretta Scott King Honor for From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun 2001 Coretta Scott King Award for Miracle's Boys ALA Best Book for Young Adults in 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2005 2004 Coretta Scott King Honor for Locomotion 2005 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers for Behind You 2006 Margaret A. Edwards Award 2009 Josette Frank Award for After Tupac and D Foster 2009 Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards for Peace Locomotion 2009 Keystone to Reading Book Award for Peace Locomotion 2013 Coretta Scott King Honor for Each Kindness 2013 Jane Addams Children's Book Award - Book for Younger Children for Each Kindness 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award, U.S. nominee 2014 National Book Award in Young People's Literature for Brown Girl Dreaming 2015 Coretta Scott King Award for Brown Girl Dreaming 2015 Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation 2015 Langston Hughes Medal, The City College of New York 2015 Newbery Honor for Brown Girl Dreaming 2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work In Youth/Teens Fiction for Brown Girl Dreaming 2015 Robert F. Sibert Honor for Brown Girl Dreaming 2016 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at Adelphi University 2017 May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture at the American Library Association, recognizes significant contribution to children's literature. 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work In Fiction for Another Brooklyn 2018–19 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for the Library of Congress. 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award 2019 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work In Youth/Teens for Harbor Me 2019 Jane Addams Children's Book Award - Book for Younger Children for The Day You Begin 2019 Goodread's Choice Award Best Fiction Nomination for Red at the Bone 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, winner 2020 MacArthur Fellows Program Grant Award, winner

Complete works

Adult novels

Autobiography of a Family Photo (1995) Another Brooklyn (2016) Red at the Bone (2019) Remember Us (2023)

Middle grade titles

Last Summer with Maizon (1990) Maizon at Blue Hill (1992) Between Madison and Palmetto (1993) Feathers (2007) After Tupac and D Foster (2008) Peace Locomotion (2009) Locomotion (2010), verse novel Brown Girl Dreaming (2014), verse novel Harbor Me (2018) Before the Ever After (2020)

Young adult titles

The Dear One (1990) I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This (1994) From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun (1995) The House You Pass on the Way (1997) If You Come Softly (1998) Lena (1999) Miracle's Boys (2000) Hush (2002) Behind You (2004) Beneath a Meth Moon (2012) The Letter Q: Queer Writers' Notes to Their Younger Selves (2012) (Contributor)

Illustrated works

Martin Luther King, Jr. and His Birthday (nonfiction), illus. Floyd Cooper (1990) Book Chase, illus. Steve Cieslawski (1994) We Had a Picnic This Sunday Past, illus. Diane Greenseid (1997) Sweet, Sweet Memory, illus. Floyd Cooper (2000) The Other Side, illus. E. B. Lewis (2001) Visiting Day, illus. James Ransome (2002) Our Gracie Aunt, illus. Jon J. Muth (2002) Coming on Home Soon, illus. E. B. Lewis (2003) Show Way, illus. Hudson Talbott (2006) Pecan Pie Baby, illus. Sophie Blackall (2010) Each Kindness, illus. E. B. Lewis (2012) This Is the Rope, illus. James Ransome (2013) The Day You Begin, illus. Rafael López (2018) The Year We Learned to Fly, illus. Rafael López (2022) The World Belonged To Us, illus by Leo Espinosa (2022)

Adaptations Film Filmmaker Spike Lee and others made Miracle's Boys into a miniseries, airing in 2005.

Audio recordings I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, Recorded Books, 1999 Lena, Recorded Books, 1999 Miracle's Boys, Listening Library, 2001 Locomotion, Recorded Books, 2003 Show Way, Weston Woods, 2012 Brown Girl Dreaming, Penguin Audio, 2014 If You Come Softly, Listening Library, 2018 Harbor Me, Listening Library, 2018 The Day You Begin, Listening Library, 2018 Visiting Day, Listening Library, 2018 Before Her, part of "The One" series, Brilliance Publishing, 2019 Red at the Bone, Penguin Audio, 2019