Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson (born February 12, 1963, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.) is an American author who has written more than 40 books for adults, young adults, and children that focus on African American experiences. Her work has helped to inspire children in the United States and has been recognized with numerous awards and honors.

(Read W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1926 Britannica essay on African American literature.)

Early life

Woodson spent her early childhood in Greenville, South Carolina, and moved to Brooklyn when she was seven years old. She grew up with a love of reading and in fifth grade realized that she wanted to be a writer. After Woodson graduated from Adelphi University in New York, she worked for a program helping homeless and runaway children. In addition, she wrote short stories for children’s reading tests.

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Writing career

Woodson’s first novel was for young adults. That work, Last Summer with Maizon (1990), focuses on the relationship between two friends, Margaret and Maizon, during the summer before Maizon leaves for boarding school. The second book in the series, Maizon at Blue Hill (1992), follows Maizon to boarding school, where she is one of the few Black girls at the otherwise all-white institution. The series’ last book, Between Madison and Palmetto (1993), returns to Margaret and Maizon’s relationship after Maizon comes home from the school.

Woodson’s other early young adult novels include The Dear One (1991), dealing with teen pregnancy, and I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This (1994) and its sequel, Lena (1999), regarding a poor white girl and a rich Black girl in the South who become friends. Miracle’s Boys (2000) is about three orphaned brothers trying to get by after the death of their mother. Feathers (2007) follows the story of a girl who befriends a white boy at an all-Black school in the 1970s, shortly after the end of segregation. After Tupac and D Foster (2008) explores the lives and friendship of three girls growing up in Queens, New York, in a community affected by events in the life of rapper and actor Tupac Shakur. Beneath a Meth Moon (2012) explores the human losses endured by a girl during Hurricane Katrina, her escape into drugs, and her journey back to health. Harbor Me (2018) brings together six children with unique backgrounds who share their stories and become friends. In Before the Ever After (2020), a boy comes to terms with the end of his father’s professional football career, his father’s loss of health, and how these changes have an impact on their relationship. In 2023 Woodson published Remember Us, which was inspired by her memories of the fires that swept through her childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn in the 1970s. The novel follows an 11-year-old girl who aspires to play professional basketball and who befriends a new kid on the block.

In 2014 Woodson released a memoir written in verse, Brown Girl Dreaming. It tells of her growing up in the 1960s and ’70s in South Carolina and New York. Woodson also published novels for adults, including Another Brooklyn (2016) and Red at the Bone (2019). Another Brooklyn follows the main character as she reminisces about growing up in New York. Red at the Bone examines the decisions and experiences of two families from different social classes. Woodson’s books for young children, for which she worked with various illustrators, include Our Gracie Aunt (2002), Pecan Pie Baby (2010), and The Day You Begin (2018); the latter was illustrated by renowned Mexican-American artist Rafael López. Later works include The Year We Learned to Fly (2022), with illustrations by López, and The World Belonged to Us (2022), illustrated by Colombian artist Leo Espinoza.

(Read Britannica’s essay on “12 Contemporary Black Authors You Must Read.”)

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Awards and honors

Although Woodson’s books often dealt with challenging subjects, including child abuse, identity, and homosexuality, her works have been praised for their vivid portrayal of realistic characters, as well as for their emphasis on community and bonds formed through friendship. Woodson received many awards and honors for her work, including four Newbery Honors Awards, two Coretta Scott King Awards, and a National Book Award (for her memoir). She served as Young People’s Poet Laureate (2015–17) and as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2018–19). In 2018 she won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, an international award for children’s and young adult literature, and in 2020 she won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, an international award for lifetime achievement in children’s literature. That same year she received a prestigious fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation.