Skip to main content

Brown Girl Dreaming


Summary: 
Jackie moves from the North to Greenville, South Carolina when her parents split up so that her mother, siblings and she can live with her maternal grandparents. Though the South is in the midst of the Civil Rights movement and people aren't always kind, Jackie loves Greenville and living with her family there. When her mother moves back North and takes the children with her, Jackie befriends a Puerto Rican girl in New York named Maria and decides she wants to be a writer. Every year, Jackie visits her grandparents back in Greenville and as she grows up she becomes more aware of the changing social and political climate and the continuing Civil Rights movement.

Strengths: 
Brown Girl Dreaming is written in verse. This reflects Jackie's love of words and phrases and they way they come together and the rhythm they create. Many lines are beautiful by themselves but together they are heartachingly so in places. Because the book is a historical fiction piece, Woodson weaves her story with pieces that are humorous, poignant and sad all at the same time, bringing those parts together with the facts of the era and of her childhood.

If you liked this book, check out these!

 The Crossover
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

 Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Nancy Paulsen Books. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bloom's Taxonomy for a Digital Age

Bloom's Taxonomy. One of the things we are constantly hearing in our school is the push for increased rigor in our classroom, as a result of the STAAR tests and others like it becoming more rigorous. We are told to push for higher order thinking and questioning from our students. One of the tools we use to look at how we can increase rigor is Bloom's Taxonomy. But some things about Bloom's don't translate exactly when we are talking about the digital age and the classroom or library. For example, remembering is the lowest piece of the triangle for Bloom's, but remembering looks different when you have instant access to a powerful computer that can use essentially limitless online resources to find answers. I've mentioned to my husband just how much more this and future generations will know about the world around them simply because they no longer have to remember everything they're interested in knowing. If I pass a historical marker for a place I haven...
7 comments
Read more

Podcasting

I'm pretty lucky when it comes to podcasting. My husband, the Chainmail Ninja, is a hobbyist podcaster and professional book narrator so we have quite a recording setup in our home office. He worked in radio for 10+ years so he does the production side of things as well as the recording. I've tossed around the idea of contributing on his podcasts, which are mostly about geek culture and hobbies, but haven't had time to put this plan in action. But for today's blog post, I went ahead and made some time to create a podcast using our equipment. There are three main steps to creating a podcast. First, is the planning stage. Some podcasters prepare using various methods. Some research their topics, but don't do any other prep and speak mostly off the cuff. Many podcasters create a notes page to make sure they hit all the points they want to. Others create detailed scripts for their podcasts. The second step is recording the podcast. This can be done using the inter...
4 comments
Read more

Final Reflection - Digital Technology for the School Librarian

For this course, I was required to interact and evaluate a plethora of technology tools for use in the library. Some technology was geared toward student use, other pieces were used for faculty or staff use or for connecting with parents or other library patrons. I think this may have been one of the most useful courses I've had thus far in my LibSci grad program. On top of absolutely loving the way assignments have been handled through blog posts, the hands on experience and ability to look at how other students are using the same tools was so incredibly useful. The list of blogs for other students also gives me a future resource when I am looking for ways to use these tools. My favorite tools were definitely the web 2.0 tools that I can use with students to create. Whether using them for lesson plans, makerspaces or with clubs, these creative ways to use technology to further understanding will likely be a core piece of instruction as a librarian. I imagine I will be using ...
2 comments
Read more