2. Early life
● Jacqueline grew up in the predominantly
Black and Latino Brooklyn neighbor of
Bushwick.
● She spent her summers with her
grandmother in Greenville, S.C.
● This experience of living in an urban,
northern city as well as a smaller
southern city influenced the settings of
her books and the backgrounds of her
characters.
● She wrote her first collection of poetry
at 7.
Jacqueline and her brother Roman
3. Teen years
● She spent most of her teen years
reading realistic fiction.
● As a teen, she believed every writer
drew from some type of real life
experience when they wrote their
stories.
● As an adult, she believes she is mentally
“stuck in” her teen years and can easily
remember those thoughts and feelings
and that is why she is drawn to writing
younger characters.
4. Writing Styles
● Known for detailed physical landscapes.
● Boundaries: social, economic, physical, sexual, and racial.
○ Has her characters break through these physical and psychological barriers, in order to
create a strong strong and emotional narrative.
● Also known for her optimism.
○ Prefers books that offer hope than those that do not.
○ Uses the philosophy of what’s noted above in her own works, as shown with her
statement of, “ If you love the people you create, you can see the hope there.”
● Woodson has also stated that as a writer, she consciously writes for a
younger audience.
5. “A lot of times kids don't want to read because they haven't
seen themselves or anything that interests them in a book.” --
Jacqueline Woodson
The books
“I don’t want people to be invisible. People
have a right to see themselves in literature.” -
-- Jacqueline Woodson
8. Banned and challenged titles
Because Woodson’s books deal with sometime controversial
themes like racism, drug addiction, police brutality,
homosexuality, poverty and child abuse, they have been
banned or challenged.
● Dear One
● From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun
● Hush
● I hadn't Meant to Tell You This
● Lena
● Miracle's Boys
9. Awards
Coretta Scott King Awards
● 2015 Brown Girl Dreaming (Winner)
● 2013 Each Kindness (Honor)
● 2004 Locomotion (Honor)
● 2001 Miracles Boys (Honor)
● 1996 From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun (Honor)
● 1995 I Hadn’t Mean to Tell You That (Honor)
National Book Award
● 2014 Brown Girl Dreaming
Newberry Honor Book Awards
● 2016 Brown Girl Dreaming
● 2009 After Tupac and D Foster
● 2008 Feathers
● 2006 Show Way
10. Awards
● Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime
Achievement -- 2006
● The Poetry Foundation’s Young
People’s Poet Laureate (2015-2017)
● National Ambassador for Young
People’s Literature (2018)
● Children’s Literature Legacy Award
[formerly the Laura Ingalls Wilder
Award] (2018)
● Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2018)
11. I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This (2006)
I wanted to write a novel about friendship and
in it, I wanted to show how destructive racism
and classism can be. I also wanted to write
about the “secret” in the book—to say to young
readers— “Don’t be afraid. You are not alone.” -
- Jacqueline Woodson
12. Lena Lena is the sequel to I Hadn’t Meant to Tell
You This. It follows Lena and her younger
sister Dion as they run away from home.
Their mother is dead, their father is abusive,
and Lena believes their only hope for a
“normal” life is to leave Chauncey, Ohio and
find her mother’s people in Kentucky, even
though they didn’t attend her funeral. As they
hitchhike through Ohio, West Virginia and
Kentucky, sometimes disguising themselves
as boys, they learn about the true nature of
people, survival, and that home doesn’t
always mean blood relatives. They end their
journey going back to Ohio to live with their
friend Marie (the main character from I Hadn’t
Meant to Tell You This).
13. If You Come Softly
A lyrical story of star-crossed love perfect for readers of The Hate U Give, by
National Ambassador for Children’s Literature Jacqueline Woodson–now
celebrating its twentieth anniversary, and including a new preface by the
author.
Jeremiah feels good inside his own skin. That is, when he’s in his own Brooklyn
neighborhood. But now he’s going to be attending a fancy prep school in
Manhattan, and black teenage boys don’t exactly fit in there. So it’s a surprise
when he meets Ellie the first week of school. In one frozen moment their eyes
lock, and after that they know they fit together–even though she’s Jewish and
he’s black. Their worlds are so different, but to them that’s not what matters. Too
bad the rest of the world has to get in their way.
14. Miracle’s Boys
“You found her the next morning, he said. He sounded real patient, like he
was talking to a very little kid. She hadn’t got up to fix your breakfast. You
were in the fourth grade. You always liked oatmeal in the morning. You
tried to wake her up to fix you some” (Woodson, 2010, p. 32).
Woodson Miracle’s Boys conquer underlying issues that children tend to face
when losing a parent(s) such as poverty, anger, isolation, fear, and simple
understanding. In this case, Ty’ree, Charlie (New Charlie), and Lafayette have
lost both parents; one to hyperthermia and one to insulin shock. After losing
their mother to diabetes, Ty’ree (22 years old) as the older brother has been
placed in charge to care for his younger two brother, Lafayette (12 years old)
and Charlie (15 years old). Two years prior to their mother passing, Charlie was
sent to a youth detention center called Rahway home for Boys for robbing
Poncho’s candy store. Charlie comes home and continues to create chaos for
his brothers and they fear for his life. Lafayette believes he is the reason their
mother died. Ty’ree deals with the pressure of having to raise his brothers
along with the household tasks and not being able to attend college.
15. References
2014 National Book Awards. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2014.html#.W5W7uy01SuU
The American author Jacqueline Woodson is the laureate of Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2018 - ALMA. (2018, March 27).
Retrieved
September 9, 2018, from http://www.alma.se/en/Laureates/2018/
American Library Association. (2015, March). Newsmaker: Jacqueline Woodson. American
Libraries Magazine, 23.Retrieved from American Library Association.
Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938-Present. (2018, June 06). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecotthonors/caldecottmedal
Coretta Scott King Book Awards - All Recipients, 1970-Present. (2018, August 06). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
http://www.ala.org/rt/emiert/coretta-scott-king-book-awards-all-recipients-1970-present
Edwards Award. (2018, June 11). Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/yalsa/edwards-award
I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson. (2006, June 08). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/272337.I_Hadn_t_Meant_to_Tell_You_This?ac=1&from_search=true
Iasevoli, B. (2018, February 05). Stop Using the Label 'Struggling Reader,' Author Jacqueline Woodson Advises. Retrieved
September 9, 2018, from
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2018/02/stop_using_the_label_strugglin.html
Jacqueline Woodson. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jacqueline-woodson
Jacqueline Woodson. (2018, September 5) Retrieved September 9, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson on Writing in the Margins. (2013, September 17). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
https://www.arts.gov/big-read/2013/jacqueline-woodson-writing-margins
16. References
National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
http://www.read.gov/cfb/ambassador/ambassador.html
Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922-Present. (2018, May 08). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal
Taylor, D. (2006). Jacqueline. School Library Journal, 42-45.
Transcript from an interview with Jacqueline Woodson. (2013, August 12). Retrieved September 10, 2018, from
http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/woodson/transcript
Visiting with Author Jacqueline Woodson. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
https://www.bankstreetbooks.com/visiting-author-jacqueline-woodson
Welcome to the Children's Literature Legacy Award home page! (2018, July 18). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/clla
WIU Libraries Guides: Banned and Challenged Books: Authors W-Z. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from
https://wiu.libguides.com/c.php?g=295495&p=1971520
Woodson, J. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2018, from https://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/
Woodson, J. (2006). I Hadnt Meant to Tell You This. New York: Penguin.
Woodson, J. (2012, March 6). Teaching Books.net Blog.
Retrieved from Teaching Books.net: https://forum.teachingbooks.net/2012/03/guest-blogger-jacqueline-woodson/
Woodson, J. (2017). Brown Girl Dreaming. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press
17. Images
Slides 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10:. http://jacquelinewoodson.com
Slide 2 : https://www.pexels.com/
Slide 8: Top left image. http://jacquelinewoodson.com
Bottom right image. https://www.bankstreetbooks.com/visiting-author-jacqueline-woodson
Slide 11: Edwards Award image and Poetry Foundation awards image.
https://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/all-about-me/some-awards-ive-won/
National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature image. http://everychildareader.net/ambassador/
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award image. http://www.alma.se/en/
Slides 12, 13, 14 and 15: Book cover images from http://www.amazon.com
Editor's Notes
Once everyone puts in their citations we can spread them out onto several slides if we need.
