My Woodson Experience

             

   For my Jacqueline Woodson experience, I read her book, Miracle’s Boys. I thought that it was a great book that really showed a tight family bond throughout the midst of death, gangs, and other problems. Talking about Woodson’s other novels, as well as looking though some of her picture books really showed me the common themes that hold throughout her works. Her books center on African American families and their experiences while living in New York. These families in her stories face many hardships but still maintain their sense of family and love.

                In Miracle’s Boys, Woodson depicts a family of brothers who lost both their father and their mother. One brother spent a long time in jail, and was in jail when his mother passed away and blames his younger brother for not being able to save her. I know that personally I have never experienced such powerful emotions, but while reading these sections of Woodson’s novel, I found myself tearing up a few times. Woodson’s descriptions and interactions between her characters are so real that as the reader you cannot help but feel exactly what these characters are feeling as you turn every page. Authors who write like this make it very easy for the readers of their books; they create situations and characters that the readers can identify with and connect to, so when these characters are placed in these heart wrenching situations, the reader almost has no choice but to become personally involved in the story’s events and feel for the characters they are reading about. I’ve read a number of books in my time, and there are some out there that are so boring to read because it’s hard to relate to the characters and get into the sequence of events; there are very few books that make me feel different emotions while reading them, and Woodson’s novel Miracle’s Boys was one of the few books that has.

                On Woodson’s website, she says that as a child she was disciplined for lying at home. When she went to school, however, she realized that the one place it was okay to lie was on paper in her stories. She says that it was through writing stories that she became a fantastic liar. I could not agree more; her lies create realistic events and characters that keep her readers interested and wanting more. After reading a couple of Jacqueline Woodson’s books I know that I am going to be reading more of them in the future.