A Book Review on Jacqueline Woodson’s ‘Brown Girl Dreaming’

Hi! It’s me Isabelle Knight here again with another book review! Today, I am doing a book review of Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. By the way, I would first like to tell you that most of the books in my book reviews are or were on Kindle Unlimited at the time of writing. This book was not so if you do want to read it, you will have to pay $9.99 for it. (This is the price on kindle for the ebook.) Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the book review!

I loved this book. We had to read this book in class and discuss it, and to be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of the book at first. I’m not sure how to explain it but when I read the first few chapters, I was just a bit confused, and I just didn’t like it much. Although, that could just be because it’s written in free verse poetry, unlike most novels I read. Whenever I first read a free verse novel, it just takes a while to get used to reading free verse.

So, at first, I didn’t really like the book, but when we began read it and discuss it in class, it just really started to grow on me. And now I absolutely love this book!

Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir that is written in free verse. I’m sure that there will be some of you who won’t want to read a memoir, some of you who might say memoirs are boring. Trust me, Brown Girl Dreaming is anything but that. In the book, she writes about what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s during a time when African Americans weren’t treated fairly. The plot… I’m not really sure how to explain the plot. It’s really just her life experience growing up during that time. This might sound boring to you, but it is not. So many interesting events happen and there are so many important themes and lessons weaved in throughout this book.

One thing I really liked was the theme of self-discovery and the author’s use of free verse. Throughout the book, she sort of struggles with her identity and also feels halfway home in each place, New York and South Carolina. We’re still discussing the book in class, but I’ve already finished reading the book at breakfast so… 😅 I’m a speed reader

Anyway, another thing I liked was how many of the things that happened to the author are just so relatable such as being jealous of her older sibling and having trouble in school and with reading and writing. We can all relate to that. Especially me because I do have some trouble with school. I do not like maths. At all. Also, I just found out that maths is usually used in British English and some other English-speaking countries outside of America. Just so you know, my vocabulary is so mixed! It’s a huge mix of British English and American English so I’m sorry if I confuse you sometimes.

Back to the book review. I really loved the sections on reading and writing because, to me, it is just so relatable since I am an author. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I just love those sections! My favorite sections have to be ‘reading’, ‘writing #1’, and ‘composition notebook’ (is that what it’s called? I’m afraid I can’t really recall the exact name of that selection so it may or may not be wrong).

I honestly can’t find anything wrong with this book. It is amazing and I absolutely love it! It is just amazing; the plot and events are great and relatable and so are the people in the book. You can really relate to the author while reading this book. I just love it! It also inspired me to write some free verse of my own.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is about 8 – 12 years old (or even older! Okay, fine, I’ll change this to 8 – 200. Two hundred just in case there is someone who has lived for a really, really, really, really long time) and to anyone who liked the Newbery Honor Award books and Inside Out and Back Again. I’m afraid I can’t really write the author’s name of Inside Out and Back Again because I don’t know how to type accented letters. I’ll try. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. This isn’t really correct but it’s the best I can do since I have no idea how to type accented letters. Sorry!

Yeah, I think that wraps up this book review. Overall, this is a brilliant and a beautifully written book that I would highly recommend to anyone. Thanks for coming and I’ll see you again soon!

Isabelle