BOOKS AND AUTHORS Elementary school through high school Talking with Jacqueline Woodson The award-winning author discusses the message of hope in her books. By Dean Schneider acqueline Woodson was born in Columbus, Ohio, and grew up “It’s hard to fi nd a person J in Greenville, South Carolina, who doesn’t have a tiny and Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives. She says on her Web bit of good somewhere.” site, “I used to say I’d be a teacher or a Photo credit: Penguin Young Readers Group lawyer or a hairdresser when I grew up but even as I said these things, I knew are really just trying to survive, to get what made me happiest was writing.” through each day—together. I think Her many books—picture books, po- the theme of that book is defi nitely etry, novels—are about characters get- hope-based but more about moving ting by, fi nding strength, fi nding hope, forward—how do we do this when and fi nding warmth in loving families. the odds seem so stacked against us? Woodson has already won most major How do we stay whole and good? awards in children’s literature, includ- ing the Margaret A. Edwards Award DS: What kind of research did you have for lifetime achievement, Newbery to do to write a book in which the only a brother who is three years older and Honor Book citations for Show Way characters are boys? one who is three years younger.) en I and Feathers, National Book Award W: Miracle’s Boys killed me. I watched boys—just went to the park and nominations for Locomotion and Hush, rewrote it about 25 times—cover to watched them play ball, interact, hang and the Coretta Scott King Author cover—changing point of view and out. I spent lots of time just thinking and Award for Miracle’s Boys. e following circumstances and ages and everything imagining—if I was a boy, who would I interview was conducted by e-mail. about who each brother was. Because I be? If I had a son, what would I want him really didn’t know, and it was scary, this to be/do/say? If I was an older brother/ DS: On your Web site, you say you not knowing. I had so much doubt all the younger brother/middle child, what wrote Feathers to explore “the many time. Talk about Imposter Syndrome— would I want? And on and on. ways people fi nd hope in the world.” Miracle’s Boys was it to the hilt. I kept I had done of lot of this “research” Would you say that’s also a theme of asking myself what right did I have to tell when I wrote From the Notebooks of Miracle’s Boys? this story. In some ways, the story had Melanin Sun, so I had some sense of how W: I think you can’t write for nothing to do with me, and in so many to turn my own gender inside out and young people without having hope in ways the story was all mine. So it was examine its opposite, but working with the story, and I think so much of what confusing and sometimes so painful. three boys as opposed to one and fi guring I try to do is show young people (and My fi rst research was hitting up my out how to get them to love and hate myself) through the writing that no two brothers—asking them about their each other was a whole diff erent story. matter how dire a situation may seem, lives, their childhood, etc. ey didn’t there is something great in the surviv- give me much I didn’t already know—or DS: Even though Newcharlie is so tough ing of it. In Miracle’s Boys, the brothers remembered better than they did. (I have when he comes home in the early part of 28 Book Links May 2008 www.ala.org/booklinks 28-30 Talking w Woodson.indd 28 4/21/2008 2:20:22 PM fell in love with each one of them and began to really see them as these people I had made up come to life. Very surreal. For more about Jacqueline Woodson, But it wasn’t the book by any means— visit the Book Links Web site at the movie felt far less complicated to me. http://www.ala.org/booklinks and But probably to someone working in click on “Web Connections.” film, the book feels less complicated. DS: What would you say to eighth- the novel, he clearly is a likable young graders when they complain—and they man underneath, as you let readers often do—that so many of the books we know in carefully revealed details. Is read are so sad? there a connection between the char- Woodson: Hmmm . that’s a tough acter of Charlie and the characters in one. I don’t see the books as sad. I see or the inspiration behind your picture them as realistic and hopeful. I would book Visiting Day? ask students to write a paragraph about Woodson: That’s an interesting ques- the one place or the many places in tion. I had an uncle who was in and the books where they see a part of out of prison throughout his 20s. My themselves. And I would be surprised younger brother has done time in federal to meet an eighth-grader who couldn’t prison and even as I write this, is having find some part of themselves, their to do another three months for a parole lives, their world, on the page. And I violation. My uncle was a smart and would say there are places in these sorts loving guy. My brother is absolutely of books where you laugh, where you brilliant—part of his prison sentence choke up, where you get really angry, was having to work with the FBI and where you feel a little bit afraid—and show them how he was doing half the that’s what makes it realistic fiction, be- stuff he was doing—crazy. My uncle and cause each of us experiences some part my brother both are great people who or all parts of those reactions/emotions made stupid choices, and I think this every single day. And what’s so grim about Charlie. I don’t know the father about that? It makes us complicated in Visiting Day well. I think he regrets and whole. losing his family and what he has to put them through, but I don’t know how DS: How about the strong women or why he’s in prison. Charlie’s dumb characters in so many of your books? In choice came from a loving place—he Miracle’s Boys, Mama dies before the wanted to take his mother to Puerto story begins, yet she is clearly a strong Rico. I think both characters have good presence in the boys’ lives. In Coming hearts. I think it’s hard to find a person on Home Soon, Show Way, Feathers, who doesn’t have a tiny bit of good Visiting Day, and other stories, strong somewhere. Sometimes, it’s so hard to women are there, providing home and find, but then you catch glimpses of it support, and helping characters to get and go, “Yes! I saw it! Right there.” by day to day. This might be an odd question, but are you ever inspired by DS: What was it like to have a movie the characters you create? made of Miracle’s Boys? Does it do justice Woodson: I think it’s both that I’m in- to the novel, and can a movie get inside spired by the women who came before characters the way a novel can? me and that I want women represented Woodson: Books and movies are very on the page in a way that’s respectful, different. They are their own entities and complicated, and loving. And yes, when can’t even be compared. The movie does I re-read a character on the page who is justice to the novel in that it got young amazing, I have to go, “Yes!” people to pick up the book. The actors It’s funny, years ago when I wrote I were amazing and worked really hard. I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This and created www.ala.org/booklinks May 2008 Book Links 29 28-30 Talking w Woodson.indd 29 4/21/2008 2:20:37 PM this mom who left, I was stunned to see up not knowing what a gift it is to have how negatively people reacted to her another day. when I, in creating her, was thinking, “This is a great woman—a woman who Sampling Woodson knows she can’t deal—and instead of messing up her family, she leaves.” But After Tupac and D Foster. 2008. 160p. others didn’t see it that way. I had seen Putnam, $15.99 (9780399246548). the work crazy moms could do on their Gr. 6–9. kids and had always thought, “Well, if Coming on Home Soon. Illus. by E. B. they had been unselfish enough to leave, Lewis. 2004. 32p. Putnam, $16.99 the kid wouldn’t be in such a mess.” So (9780399237485). K–Gr. 3. I thought the act of leaving was a very big and unselfish act. I still do. But boy, Feathers. 2007. 208p. Putnam, did people think differently. $15.99 (9780399239892).