Jacqueline Woodson!

I wrote a paper about Jacqueline Woodson for a summer class. Pretentious theme: "Woodson's characters overcome a sense of dislocation to discover an internal locus of control and the agency necessary to meet the future."

Anyway, I read these books:

Hush
Family enters witness protection program.
Locomotion
Boy works out his feeling about foster mother, separation from sister, death of parents through poetry.
(I'd kind of already read these, but reread them more closely.) Both are pretty intense and then hopeful.

I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This tells the story of Lena and her sister Dion, white trash minorities in a middle class African-American community, from the perspective of Marie, a popular black girl whose mother has left her with her father. Lena is the sequel, which follows Lena and Dion on the road after they escape their abusive father. It wraps things up happily, a bit atypical for Woodson's longer things but more in line with her picture books.

and a whole bunch of Woodson's picture books:

Show Way
Possibly perfect picture book memoir.

We Had a Picnic this Sunday Past
The title's a good summary.

Our Gracie Aunt
Two kids who are placed with their aunt by a social worker after their mother goes missing.

Visiting Day
Little girl visits father in prison with grandmother.

Coming on Home Soon
Historical fiction; a girl awaits her mother's return from working in a factory during a war.

Sweet, Sweet Memory
A little girl remembers her recently deceased grandfather.

The Other Side
A fence separates a black girl from a potential white playmate.

These brief notes aren't much, but Woodson is really exceptional and I admire her work.