Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

Oh, my. This is a simply beautiful book. Books written in verse aren't for everyone, but I tend to like them because the emotion is concentrated and the language precise. I didn't say "verse novels," because this isn't a novel. It's a memoir.

I think most writer/bookworm types are naturally drawn to a book about how a writer grows. To view the writing through a wider lens, it's about a girl finding her voice and her purpose. It's also about encouragement: I as a reader find myself a bit breathless at the fact that Jacqueline Woodson said, and told herself, that she wanted to be a writer from a very young age, and she did it. Oh, how she did it. And to broaden the scope even more, it's very much about the African-American experience in the days of the struggle for civil rights and beyond.

There are surprising bits, such as Woodson's upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness, and gut-punching bits, such as her younger brother lying in bed at night, eating paint chips off the walls. There are arresting lines, such as "Even Salome intrigues us, her wish for a man's head / on a platter -- who could want this and live / to tell the story of that wanting?" and lines that raise ire, such as her mother's warning concerning storytelling: "If you lie, one day you'll steal." As a matter of fact, I don't reject that statement in general; I think lying is a form of stealing; it's theft of the truth. But the claim, even by writers (about which I have ranted in the past), that storytelling is lies just makes me all kinds of crazy. Tell that to Jesus or to Nathan the prophet.

Although I'd like to know what Jackie's siblings did with their lives as well, we don't find that out. However, the book cries out for photos and that cry is answered; they're included in the back.

There aren't many books, when it comes right down to it, that should become required reading; this is one of them. Highly, highly, highly recommended.