Jacqueline Woodson (www.jacquelinewoodson.com) is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include Coretta Scott King Award winner Before the Ever After; New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle's Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Gr 5-7-- When her best friend wins a scholarship to a boarding school for gifted students, Margaret is devastated. Then, in Maizon's absence, she discovers her own abilities, including success in the smartest class at school and winning a poetry contest. Still, when Maizon leaves the boarding school after only three months, Margaret, Maizon's grandmother, and the other adults in their Brooklyn neighborhood are glad to have her back. Woodson quickly establishes the strong ties between the two girls and paints a vivid picture of the supporting characters and their surroundings. However, once Maizon goes away to school, the focus of the story blurs. Because Maizon neither writes nor calls, other characters speculate that she is finding the work too difficult because she's not the brightest student anymore. Surprisingly, the 11 year old's decision to leave is made without any adult input. Later, readers receive only a brief explanation when Maizon comments that many of the girls hated her because she was smart and black. Margaret's growth is conveyed through only two brief episodes at school, yet this is a major development in the story. While readers will certainly be drawn into the book by the warmth and tenderness generated by the characters, as well as the descriptive images of cinnamon-scented kitchens and distant trains in the twilight, the narrative gaps may leave them wondering just what happened and why, and whose story this is meant to be. --Susan Schuller, Milwaukee Public Library
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