A Virtual Visit with Author Jacqueline Woodson

On April 1, hundreds of young people from the five boroughs participated in a virtual author visit with author Jacqueline Woodson, hosted by the National Book Foundation’s Book Rich Environments (BRE) program in partnership with NYCHA. Ms. Woodson is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children.

BRE helps children living in public housing develop a lifelong joy of reading. It connects families living in public housing with reading-related resources, working to improve opportunities and outcomes. Launched in 2017, the program has distributed over 1.5 million books to children and families in public housing. BRE is organized by the National Book Foundation in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Center for Families Learning, U.S. Department of Education, and Urban Libraries Council.

As part of Book Rich Environments, the National Book Foundation has hosted virtual author visits during the pandemic to help young people connect with authors and deepen their love of reading.

Over 600 copies of Jacqueline Woodson’s New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming were distributed to young people in all five boroughs. Ms. Woodson won the 2014 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature for the book, as well as the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the Sibert Honor Award.

From her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Woodson read excerpts from Brown Girl Dreaming and then answered questions submitted by young people, discussing how she rewrote the book about 30 times, how racism affected her life, the teachers who let her write, her process as a writer, how she comes up with ideas, and her advice to young writers: “Look up and look out, take in the world, and don’t forget what you’re seeing.” Hundreds of students watched at home or attended screenings hosted by community-based organizations, including Good Shepherd Services in the Bronx and Pink Houses Cornerstone in Brooklyn.

*Photo of Jacqueline Woodson By Fuzheado – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72310421
*Photo of Brown Girl Dreaming book cover: http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/b/brown-girl-dreaming/9780399252518_custom-924dd4d31f7bb7eb200cdc4ab20453f8fa19d7e1-s300-c85.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46508749