Jacqueline Woodson
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Jacqueline Woodson (born February 12, 1963 in Columbus, Ohio) is an African-American author who writes books targeted at children and adolescents. She is currently a faculty member of Goddard College.[1]
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[edit] Biography
Jacqueline Woodson was born on February 12, 1963 in Columbus, Ohio but grew up in Greenville, South Carolina Greenville, South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York, where she currently resides with her partner and children. She has one brother and two sisters...
While in School she often got in trouble for telling stories until one teacher told her to write her stories down so then they would be fiction and not lies. Her favorite subject in school was English and she loved to do anything where she got to write. Her favorite books as a child were The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde, The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson and Stevie by Jon Steptoe.
Wherever she went in Brooklyn, she was surrounded by African American and Puerto Rican culture, which has often informed her works. As a child, she never saw books about African American girls, deaf children, single family homes, etc. This lack of diverse literature inspired her to write the way that she does today.[2] She graduated and got her B.A. in English. She worked as a drama therapist for runaways and homeless children before becoming a full-time writer.[3]
In her spare time Woodson enjoys reading, sewing, having "heated" political debates with friends and traveling. She has been to all fifty states and also England, France, Germany, Puerto Rico, Belize, Virgin Gorda and Mexico. She speaks Spanish and American Sign Language.
[edit] Books
[edit] Picture Books
- Coming On Home Soon 2004
*We Had a Picnic This Past Sunday 1997
- The Other Side 2001
- Sweet, Sweet Memory 2000
- Our Gracie Aunt 2002
- Visiting Day 2002
- Show Way 2005'
[edit] Young Adult
- The Dear One 1991
- The House You Pass On The Way 1998
- Lena 1999
- I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This 1994
- From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun 1995
- Miracle's Boys 2000
- If You Come Softly 1998
- Behind You 2004
- Hush 2002
- After Tupac and D Foster 2008
[edit] Middle Grades
- Feathers 2007
- Locomotion 2003
- Last Summer with Maizon 1990
- Maizon at Blue Hill 1992
- Between Madison and Palmetto 1993
[edit] Awards
In 2006, Woodson won the Newbery Honor for Show Way. Her Locomotion was a National Book Award Finalist and won a Coretta Scott King Honor, while her Miracle's Boys won the Coretta Scott King Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was made into a mini-series directed by a number of people including Spike Lee. In 2006, she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association for her books I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, Lena, From the Notebook Melanin Sun, If You Come Softly, and Miracle’s Boys. For her book Coming on Home Soon, she won the Caldecott Honor, ALA Notable, Booklist Editor's Choice and Child Magazine Best of 2004.
Written in a simple, poetic style, her most recent novel, Feathers (2007), is set in 1971 in a mostly black school, where the arrival of a white boy who looks like Jesus creates mystery and resentment. The book won a Newbery Honor at the 2008 ALA Midwinter awards ceremony. She had a quote during a speech, "behind every successful woman is her mighty pen.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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