Jacqueline Woodson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jacqueline Woodson
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Woodson at the 2018 U.S. National Book Festival
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Born | Jacqueline Amanda Woodson February 12, 1963 Columbus, Ohio, U.S. |
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | Adelphi University The New School |
Period | 1990-present |
Genre | Young adult fiction |
Subject | African-American literature |
Notable works |
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Notable awards | National Book Award National Ambassador for Young People's Literature MacArthur Fellowship |
Partner | Juliet Widoff |
Children | 2 |
Jacqueline Woodson (born February 12, 1963) is an American writer of books for children and 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.
Contents
Early years
Jacqueline Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio, and lived in Nelsonville, Ohio, before her family moved south. During her early years she lived in Greenville, South Carolina. She moved to Brooklyn at about the age of seven.
Woodson's youth was split between South Carolina and Brooklyn. In her interview with Jennifer M. Brown she remembered: "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."
As a child, Woodson enjoyed telling stories and always knew she wanted to be a writer.
Writing career
After college, Woodson went to work for Kirchoff/Wohlberg, a children's packaging 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.
Style
As an author, Woodson's known for the detailed physical landscapes she writes into each of her books. She places boundaries everywhere—social, economic, physical, racial—then has her characters break through both the physical and psychological boundaries to create a strong and emotional story. She is also known for her optimism. She has said that she dislikes books that do not offer hope. She has offered the novel Sounder as an example of a "bleak" and "hopeless" novel. On the other hand, she enjoyed A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Even though the family was exceptionally poor, the characters experienced "moments of hope and sheer beauty". She uses this philosophy in her own writing, saying: "If you love the people you create, you can see the hope there."
As a writer she consciously writes for a younger audience. There are authors who write about adolescence or from a youth's point of view, but their work is intended for adult audiences. Woodson writes about childhood and adolescence with an audience of youth in mind. In an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) she said, "I'm writing about adolescents for adolescents. And I think the main difference is when you're writing to a particular age group, especially a younger age group, you're — the writing can't be as implicit. You're more in the moment. They don't have the adult experience from which to look back. So you're in the moment of being an adolescent ... and the immediacy and the urgency is very much on the page, because that's what it feels like to be an adolescent. Everything is so important, so big, so traumatic. And all of that has to be in place for them."
Teaching
Woodson has, in turn, influenced many other writers, including An Na, who credits her as being her first writing teacher. She also teaches teens at the National Book Foundation's summer writing camp where she co-edits the annual anthology of their combined work. She was also a visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris in spring of 2017.
Themes
Woodson believes that her books address universal questions. She has tackled subjects that were not commonly discussed when her books were published, including interracial couples and homosexuality. She often does this with sympathetic characters put into realistic situations. Woodson states that her interests lie in exploring many different perspectives through her writings, not in forcing her views onto others.
Woodson has several themes that appear in many of her novels. She explores issues of gender, class and race as well as family and history. She is known for using these common themes in ground-breaking ways. 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.
African-American society and history
In her 2003 novel, Coming on Home Soon, she explores both race and gender within the historical context of World War II.
The Other Side is a poetic look at race through two young girls, one black and one white, who sit on either side of the fence that separates their worlds.
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.
Personal life
Woodson lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her partner Juliet Widoff, a physician. The couple have two children, a daughter named Toshi Georgianna and a son named Jackson-Leroi.
Jacqueline Woodson quotes
- "I wanted to write about communities that were familiar to me and people that were familiar to me. I wanted to write about communities of color. I wanted to write about girls. I wanted to write about friendship and all of these things that I felt like were missing in a lot of the books that I read as a child."
- "Black women have been everywhere--building the railroads, cleaning the kitchens, starting revolutions, writing poetry, leading voter registration drives and leading slaves to freedom. We've been there and done that. I want the people who have come before me to be part of the stories that I'm telling, because if it weren't for them, I wouldn't be telling stories."
- "Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together."
- "If you have no road map, you have to create your own."
- "My writing is inspired by where I come from, where I am today, and where I hope to go some day."
- "The hardest part is telling one's story. Once the story is on the page, the rest will come."
- "Childhood, young adulthood is fluid. And it's very easy to get labeled very young and have to carry something through your childhood and into your adulthood that is not necessarily who you are."
Interesting facts about Jacqueline Woodson
- Woodson's 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.
- Woodson has mentioned James Baldwin, Virginia Hamilton, Nikki Giovanni, Louise Meriwether among her inspirations. Other early influences included Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Sula, and the work of Rosa Guy, as well as her high-school English teacher, Mr. Miller.
- 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 2018–19.
- She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
- She published her autobiography, Brown Girl Dreaming in 2014.
- Some of her books contain harsh language and sensitive topics, such as homosexuality. This has led to issues with censorship.
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
- 2006 Newbery Honor for Show Way
- 2008 Newbery Honor for Feathers
- 2009 Newbery Honor for After Tupac and D Foster
- 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
- 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
- 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
Novels
- Autobiography of a Family Photo (1995)
- Another Brooklyn (2016)
- Red at the Bone (2019)
- Remember Us (2023) (ISBN: 978-0-399-54546-7)
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)
- 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 Espinoza (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
See also
- List of winners of the National Book Award