BIG thoughts of the little bookworm

  Dear Ms. Jaqueline Woodsen,        I have just recently finished reading your memoir  Brown Girl Dreaming  and I am in awe of your storytelling skills.  The way each of your chapters is straightforward  and packed with so much emotion is truly mesmerizing to me.  The ability how you allow your readers to view growing up in the Civil Rights era from a child’s perspective  is so unique. The way you chose to write in free verse made this book  stand out from other memoirs I have read. I am curious as to why you chose to write this book this   way.  Was it because you wanted it to stand out from other memoirs?   Did you feel that poems were the most effective way to tell snippets of your childhood? I thoroughly enjoyed the way you wrote  Brown Girl Dreaming  and found it to be so inspiring.      Your book was also such a relatable piece of art  for  me.  It truly is...

 The theme of North vs South is explored throughout the book of Brown Girl Dreaming. This theme was remarkably interesting to me so I wanted to dive deeper into it. The North   Jacqueline describes the North as being alienated. NYC lacks the sense of serenity that Greenville displays for Jacqueline. During Jacqueline’s first few years in Brooklyn, the city feels lifeless to her. The landscape of Brooklyn is nothing compared to South Carolina. Jackie misses her grandparents and the red dirt beneath her feet. Woodsen confesses in her authors' note that she dearly misses the South and its landscape- something the North simply cannot offer. The North however does offer more opportunities for people of color than the South does during this time. The Northern states, such as New York, suffer far less racism than their southern counterparts. The discrimination that floods the South is unsafe for people of color...