A Recipe for Changing the World: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

GreeHEtings, CFG, you Chenery Fifth Graders, you! 

Greetings, CFG, you Chenery Fifth Graders, you!

It’s time we talked about BGD

It’s time we talked about BGD. Brown Girl Dreaming, of course, by Jacqueline Woodson. Let’s have a book club and discuss it, shall we? Everybody bring your copy of the book, plus a snack to share. Cookies, Chex Mix, chips & dip, deviled eggs … I love them all. Set them all on the table where I can reach them, please. Thanks. Now, what did you love about the book?

I loved so many things, it’s hard to know where to start. Pass me a deviled egg and I’ll think about it. The food, of course! I loved the food in the story. Fried chicken and honey ham and icebox cake … Yum. And not just food. All the details in this story were delicious. Jacqueline Woodson pulled us into her world by tugging at our senses. For example:

“…Those Saturday evenings

at her kitchen table, the smell of Dixie Peach hair grease,

the sizzle of the straightening comb,

the hiss of the iron against damp, newly washed ribbons …” (page 108, in “changes”). 

Can’t you feel the heat of the iron and the comb? Can’t you smell the steam, and the scent of Dixie Peach? I felt as though I was there. It reminded me of Saturday nights when I was a little girl, when my mother would tie long strips of cotton rags into my hair – “rag curls” – after my bath, then blow my hair dry and send me to sleep on those nobbly rag lumps. In the morning, my hair would curl in long, bouncy tube-shaped ringlets. They were quite rage with the mothers of six year-olds back in my day.

Daddy Gunnar’s “wafer cone, pale yellow lemon-chiffon ice cream dripping from it” … “being slurped up fast, before it slides past our wrists, on down our arms and onto the hot, dry road,” makes me want lemon-chiffon ice cream so badly, I can almost taste it. Even though I’m more of a pistachio or salted caramel girl, myself, next time I’m at Rancatore’s it’ll be lemon for me. (See page 71 in “the candy lady.”)

This is the power of descriptive detail in our writing. Small, common, everyday objects like combs and ribbons, notebooks and pencils, pancakes and ice cream cones help us feel not just sensations, but also emotions. Even if it’s no fun having your hair combed and tugged by a mom or a grandma, looking back we can tell that love was what made them go to such a fuss. The sense details (ears, nose, and in this case, ouchy scalp) reveal the secrets of the heart. Daddy Gunnar’s lemon-chiffon ice cream tastes like his adoration of his “grandbabies.” He became so dear to me. In my life, I never knew a grandfather. Both of mine died before I was born. I was grateful to Jacqueline Woodson for sharing hers with me.

Details bring characters to life. Think, for example, of the poem “miss bell and the marchers.” Miss Bell, whose employer would fire her if she ever marched to protest segregation and racism in the South, still wanted to do what she could, so she fed the marchers. Not just supper, but glasses of sweet tea, corn bread and potato salad, and lemon pound cake sliced “into generous pieces.” (see pages 80-81)

I wasn’t born yet when the marchers were eating Sunday Supper with Miss Bell. I learned about the marchers in school. I saw pictures and watched archived footage of the many protests that gradually shifted hearts and minds and laws during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s in this country. I’ve always admired their bravery in the face of hateful danger and their willingness to suffer harm in order to create a world that comes closer to the promise of what America can be. But until I read about Miss Bell’s suppers, I think I thought of them in more abstract terms: marchers. Activists. Pioneers. Heroes. The people holding signs in photographs, and singing songs. They were closer to ideas than people. Ms. Woodson’s story and Miss Bell’s suppers made them real people, actual humans with shirts and shoes and names; people who sweat on a hot day, get hungry and want supper, and reach for second helpings of potato salad, just like I do.
(Every chance I get. Especially if it has dill pickles.)

I appreciated going into Miss Bell’s house, but I especially loved being in Ms. Woodson’s grandparents’ houses (Ohio & South Carolina), and in her mother’s (NYC). I felt I knew each member of her family, too, and I mourned for their sorrows and losses. Ms. Woodson has invited us all into the circle of her family and her memories. It’s always a privilege to be invited to meet a friend’s family, and join its circle around the supper table.

Brown Girl Dreaming draws many circles. It begins with a circle of one: one small baby, one new life beginning. Immediately we see that circle of one is part of a circle of five: the Woodson family, Jack, Mary Ann, Hope, Odella, and Baby Jacqueline. The circle widens to include Grandma Grace and Grandpa Hope, and all the Woodsons of Ohio, and soon after, the circle of Irbys of Greenville, South Carolina, and eventually the Woodsons and Irbys and their friends of Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York. Like ripples in a pond, the circles widen until we see not just a girl, but a family, and not just a family, but a community, and not just a community but a nation, poised on the brink of epic struggles and crucial changes. That nation is part of the biggest circle we know – Planet Earth, “a big blue marble when you see it from out there.” (page 315) To connect the dots between one young girl and forces that move the planet is no easy task, but Brown Girl Dreaming does just that.

The struggle to break down the barriers between people, and build a just world where men and women, black and white, gay and straight, every religion and no religion, every culture and every nation, can coexist in peace and share opportunity fairly, spans the entire globe and is far from over. Heroes continue to lead this struggle and eat supper and change the world. Meanwhile children still go to school and read books and sing in school concerts and find best friends and chew Bubble Yum bubble gum. 

It’s not always easy to see the connection between our own small lives (or are they ever small?) and the large forces that move in the world around us. Changes in politics, in the economy, and in society and culture feel sometimes like changes in the weather – powered by huge forces beyond our control and seemingly beyond our understanding. It’s easy to feel that nothing we might do would matter in a world so large, with problems so deep. But we are each a part of this moment, now. We each have today, and the circles we live in, and especially the family and friends we love, where we can make a difference. There’s still work to be done to realize the promise of America for every person standing on American soil. The Revolution young Jacqueline Amanda Woodson dreamed about is still going on today. She dreamed of the future, then took her pen in her hand, ready to change the world. I challenge you to do the same.

P.S. A pinch of curry powder with the yolks and mayo is the secret to deviled eggs to die for. Try it sometime. You can thank me.

Writing Challenges

1.       My mother always taught me that when you visit someone’s house for dinner, you should send them a thank-you note afterwards. Imagine yourself joining a meal with the Woodsons, or the Irbys. What would you eat? What would happen after dinner – music? Dancing? Games? Listening to a story read aloud? A walk through the garden? Which of the characters you met in Brown Girl Dreaming would you most like to talk to? Now, write your thank-you note to Jacqueline Woodson, and be sure to mention all that you loved about your visit to their home.

2.       In an essay published in 1998, about the question of writing about cultures that are very different from our own, Ms. Woodson wrote the following: “My belief is that there is room in the world for all stories, and that everyone has one. My hope is that those who write about the tears and the laughter and the language in my grandmother’s house have first sat down at the table with us and dipped the bread of their own experiences into our stew.” She’s making a comparison between a family’s shared stories and memories, and its family recipes – in this case, stew. Now, think about your own family. What’s important to your family’s story? Can you write the recipe for your family’s “stew” – all the ingredients that make your family who they are? Remember those important details!
Mine might begin this way:

BERRY STEW

4 boys, fresh picked
2 parents, over-tired

6 loud opinions

Only 1 shower

1 remote control, missing

12,479 books, strewn all over the floor

7 missing shoes

1 missing cell phone

1 stepped-on cell phone

Enough food to feed an army

1 gray cat

23 episodes of “The Flash”

17 baskets of dirty laundry

Oh, I’m just getting started! There’s so much more I could add. How about you?