Jacqueline Woodson, laureate 2018 1
Jacqueline Woodson THE WRITER WHO BELIEVES IN BOO
KS AS A FORCE FOR CHANGE Few authors can write about dark and difficult subject matter with such hope as Jacqueline Woodson. As a child, Woodson says she loved to lie, watching her friends’ eyes widen as she cooked up tales. Of course she got in trouble for it at times, and once she wrote a poem so good no one believed it was her own work. Finally, in the fifth grade, a teacher exclaimed to the class, “This is really good!” The words set her on the path to her future career. Jacqueline Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1963. She spent her early childhood in Greenville, South Carolina. At age seven she moved to Brooklyn, where she still lives. She is a multi-award winning author and a literary pioneer. She describes places and people rarely represented in children’s and YA books. She gives a voice to people who have seldom been heard. In book after book she brings us new insight, asks the hard questions, and dares to break longstanding taboos. She was appointed National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in 2018. As ambassador, she will travel around the U.S. for two years to meet with children and teens and talk with them about books and reading. Her motto will be “Reading = Hope X Change”: a choice that says a great deal about this prolific and multifaceted ALMA laureate and the message she brings. NOVELS THAT MOVE US She made her authorial debut in 1990 with Last Summer With Maizon, the first book in a trilogy about a friendship between two girls. Here, her masterful gift for characterization and her deep understanding of the