Brown Girl Dreaming; a look to the past, a hope for the future

This book is a book meant for adolescents, but I saw it and knew I wanted to read it. It is about the author, Jacqueline Woodson, and her life in both South Carolina and New York during Segregation and Jim Crow times. It is remarkable to see the divide in her life between the North and the South, and their differences in racial equality. Her writing quality is unique, not just poetry or verse, but a flowing free verse that seems to grab a reader,

"I am born as the South explodes,

too many people too many years

enslaved, then emancipated

but not free, the people who look like me

keep fighting

and marching

and getting killed

so that today - February 12, 1963

and every day from this moment on,

brown children like me can grow up free. Can grow up

learning and voting and walking and riding

wherever we want."

This whole book is something that will grab people of any age that reads it, simple enough for children, but poignant enough for adults to get hooked. Truly a read for all.