Brown Girl Dreaming
2014
- juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / literary
- juvenile nonfiction / social issues / prejudice & racism
- poetry
- african american women authors
- juvenile nonfiction / biography & autobiography / women
- roman
- american authors
- amerikanisches englisch
- biography
- juvenile poetry
The story
Newbery Honor Book National Book Award Finalist
What it’s like
Quiet, rhythmic free verse that reads like memory set down in short, unhurried lines, with white space doing much of the work on the page. The voice is intimate and observant, moving between a child's close attention to small things (a grandmother's porch, the sound of a sister's laugh, a stack of library books) and the wider weight of growing up Black in the 1960s and 1970s across South Carolina and New York. Its sensory world is warm and specific: summer heat, church hymns, the textures of family kitchens and city streets, the pull of stories and words as a way of making sense of the world. The mood is wistful and hopeful, with an undercurrent of unease about segregation and prejudice that surfaces in plain, unflinching moments rather than sustained scenes of harm. Violence is absent; racism is present but understated and rarely graphic. It suits a slow Sunday afternoon, a reflective reading session, or a read-aloud, and it is well suited to readers, especially younger ones and adults who enjoy poetry, who want a gentle, tender coming-of-age story rooted in family, faith, and the discovery of writing as a way home.
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