It's interesting to consider this story of three Black pre-teen girls coming up in Queens in the mid-1990s listening to Tupac Shakur with the riot grrrl movement happening at the same time. There's girl love/solidarity, awareness of systemic oppression, youthful powerlessness, and strong identification with music.
I'm struggling to articulate why I loved this novel so much. Maybe it's because of its subtlety. You get what's going on with the characters, but it's not sledgehammer. You leave the story with something to think about, but you're not left wondering what just happened.
As the girls become teens, the protagonist responding to her friend's brother talking about Black men being hunted, "I wanted to tell Jayjones that sisters were hunted too--boys screaming behind you and whatnot. Trying to touch you when you walked past them like that had some kind of right to your body. It was crazy.
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Julie (not verified)
Fri, 08/07/2015 - 1:24pm
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Jacqueline Woodson is the
Jacqueline Woodson is the best. I think my favorite of hers is Hush. And yeah you're exactly right -- why do I like her books so much? I think a lot of it for me is that she uses only exactly enough words. I heard her talk at ALA maybe 7-8 years ago and she read the opening passage from Behind You and it was stunning. And now, as I begin reading Brown Girl Dreaming (I went onto your blog for some book ideas and this entry inspired me), I see that that talk at ALA was probably around the time her mom died. Whoa.
jenna
Sat, 08/08/2015 - 12:26am
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Hi Julie! ♥ you
Hi Julie! ♥ you