Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson

Title:  Brown Girl Dreaming
Author:  Jacqueline Woodson
Publisher:  Nancy Paulsen Books
Year: 2014
Pages: 336
Genre:  Memoir, Told in Verse
Themes:  Black History, Family, Racism, Civil Rights
Age Range:  5th Grade and Above

Summary:  from Goodreads

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. 

Review:
I have loved all of Woodson's books, and this one is no exception.  Her prose always read more like poetry to me, so I was glad to see this book is told in verse.  Growing up in both the Jim Crow south and the Civil Rights era north, Woodson was in a unique position to witness racism and discrimination in both its over and covert incarnations.

While her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement and its affect on her daily life is central to the novel, at its heart this book is about a young girl with a complicated family, trying to figure out where she fits in the world.  Being of two worlds often made her feel like she never really belonged to either, being too country for the urban northerners and too city for her rural family.  Woodson points out the many ways she felt like the "other", and the subtle and not-so-subtle signifiers of her "otherness"-her speech patterns, her family configuration, her desire to write stories, despite not always being the best student in school.  Woodson speaks lovingly of her grandparents, who symbolize stability and permanence.  Her feelings about her mother and father are just as loving, but less grounded.  Her father is not a part of her life, her mother leaves to find work in the city, eventually pulling her and her siblings away from their grandparents' home.  And, of course, with aging grandparents come the sad reality of declining health and death, which deal a blow to the fragile ground upon which Woodson builds her sense of self.

I think that only the most mature, sophisticated fifth graders would be ready for this book, not because there is anything objectionable in it, but because I think the narrative structure and the sometimes oblique references to the events that shaped the Civil Rights movement would be lost on someone without sufficient experience to understand.  But this book, which won the National Book Award for Young Adult Fiction for 2014, is certainly accessible and appropriate for use in middle or high school, and is gorgeous and moving enough to speak to adult readers as well.

The Clone Codes, by The McKissacks

Title:  The Clone Codes
Author:  The McKissacks (Patricia, Fred, Pat)
Publisher:  Scholastic
Year:  2012
Pages:  192
Genre:  Science Fiction, Dystopian
Themes:  Freedom, Social Justice, Slavery
Age Range:  5th-8th Grade


Summary:  from Goodreads
In the year 2170 an underground abolitionist movement fights for the freedom of cyborgs and clones, who are treated no better than slaves


The Cyborg Wars are over and Earth has peacefully prospered for more than one hundred years. Yet sometimes history must repeat itself until humanity learns from its mistakes. In the year 2170, despite technological and political advances, cyborgs and clones are treated no better than slaves, and an underground abolitionist movement is fighting for freedom. Thirteen-year-old Leanna's entire life is thrown into chaos when The World Federation of Nations discovers her mom is part of the radical Liberty Bell Movement.


Review:  
The Clone Codes is an interesting look at the concept of slavery in an updated setting.  We teach a lot about slavery and the Civil war in American schools, but I suspect that the farther we get from that event, and from the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, the less accessible the information about them becomes to the students of today.  We are no longer teaching about something that happened in their parents' active memory-we are becoming a generation removed from the marches and sit-ins and boycotts.  Using The Clone Codes in cooperation with a unit on slavery or the Civil Rights Movement could go a long way towards helping the "tween" set gain a clearer picture of the issues involved.


The book itself is well, if sparsely, written.  The McKissacks apparently took their writing teachers' lessons about clarity and brevity to heart.  But that makes it an easy read for readers as young as fifth grade, and maybe even skilled fourth grade readers could get something from the story.  There are a few things thrown in that would require some advance preparation or explanation-the Patriot Act, the workings of the Supreme Court-but nothing that can't be easily managed in a classroom setting.  And the book is part of a series, which means that their may be reluctant readers who get hooked by the book in class, and then go on to read the remainder of the story.  The second and third books in the series are already out, called The Clone Wars #2: Cyborg and The Clone Wars #3: Visitor respectively. I would say these are a good addition to a middle school classroom library, and while the main character is female I feel like the story itself would be just as appealing to younger male readers, even the reluctant ones.

Countdown, by Deborah Wils

Title:  Countdown
Author:  Deborah Wiles
Publisher:  Scholastic
Pages:  400
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Themes:  Friendship, Fear, Family, Cuban Missile Crisis, Civil Rights
Age Range:  5th-8th Grade

Summary (from Goodreads):
It's 1962, and it seems everyone is living in fear. Twelve-year-old Franny Chapman lives with her family in Washington, DC, during the days surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis. Amidst the pervasive threat of nuclear war, Franny must face the tension between herself and her younger brother, figure out where she fits in with her family, and look beyond outward appearances. For Franny, as for all Americans, it's going to be a formative year.

Review:
Wiles has pulled off with this novel the rather impressive feat of making something like the Cuban Missile Crisis accessible to younger readers through this coming-of-age story.  Franny could be any pre-teen entering adolescence; she's the unsettled middle child of a stern mother and Air Force pilot father, embarrassed by her family while loving them deeply, navigating the world of friends and boys without a map.  What makes Franny's story different is that she is doing it all in the context of some of the greatest upheavals in American society.  While she and her classmates are still pedal pushers and headbands, the world around her is getting ready to enter the era of Viet Nam, the peace movement, the civil rights movement, the space race, and yes, the Cold War.

While the story itself does a decent job of detailing the particular moment in our country's history that was the Cuban Missile Crisis, there are also many parallels that could be made between 1962 and the fear that gripped the US after 9-11.  What struck me most was the fear that the adults thought it was OK to lay on these kids.  And the absurdity of teaching them to "duck and cover", as though that would provide any protection from a nuclear blast.  Just another example of schools making safety rules and having safety drills designed to make us feel like we're doing something to be safer, when in reality we can't control all of the dangers that face our children.

The format of the book is engaging, with photos and advertisements and slogans, and short biographies of some of the major players at the time thrown in.  While the main character is female, with rather uniquely female friend/boy issues, I think that there is enough action going on in the book that make readers would be able to get into the story.  Apparently this is going to be part of a trilogy called The Sixties Trilogy, though I haven't found a release date for the second book.  I'm hopeful that the next book will follow Franny's sister, Jo Ellen, as she goes to Mississippi for Freedom Summer.

Teacher Resources:
Scholastic-Deborah Wiles Author Study 
Deborah Wiles Website 
Countdown Discussion Guide 
Mutlimedia Playlist of Music and Images from Countdown