Many readers who typically avoid novels in verse find that they LOVE the poetic form via audiobook. All you need to know about this one is that the story is fantastic, and it absolutely comes alive when read by the author herself. In this memoir in verse, Woodson tells the story of her childhood, moving with her family (or part of it) from South Carolina to New York City and back again, sharing her observations through a young girl's eyes with a writer's sensibility. More info →

An evocative story of a woman making sense of how moving to Brooklyn as a young girl changed her and her sense of family. Angela, Sylvie, and Gigi are more than August's friends: they’re part of her sisterhood. They go through adolescence together and support each other through tragedy. Woodson's lyrical prose brings the story to life.

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It's hard to believe this almost-classic by Jacqueline Woodson is twenty years old; the themes are as fresh as ever. And they come alive with her narration, along with Jorjeana Marie and Guy Lockard. Jeremiah is comfortable in his Brooklyn neighborhood. But as a Black teen attending a new Manhattan prep school, he feels less comfortable. When he meets Ellie, a Jewish girl from a different world, they know they fit together, but everyone around them is not so sure. Woodson has noted Romeo and Juliet as the inspiration for her tale of star-crossed love. More info →

From the publisher: "It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat--by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them--everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives."

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From the publisher: "As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony-- a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives--even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be." Add the audio Whispersync narration, read by Jacqueline Woodson, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Peter Francis James, Shayna Small, and Bahni Turpin.

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From Publishers Weekly: "Frannie is fascinated with Emily Dickinson's poem, 'Hope is the thing with feathers/ that perches in the soul,' and grapples with its meaning, especially after a white student joins Frannie's all-black sixth-grade classroom. Set in 1971, Woodson's novel skillfully weaves in the music and events surrounding the rising opposition to the Vietnam War, giving this gentle, timeless story depth. She raises important questions about God, racial segregation and issues surrounding the hearing-impaired with a light and thoughtful touch."

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For as long as ZJ can remember, his dad has been everyone’s hero. As a charming, talented pro football star, he’s as beloved to the neighborhood kids he plays with as he is to his millions of adoring sports fans. But lately life at ZJ’s house is anything but charming. His dad is having trouble remembering things and seems to be angry all the time. ZJ’s mom explains it’s because of all the head injuries his dad sustained during his career. ZJ can understand that–but it doesn’t make the sting any less real when his own father forgets his name. As ZJ contemplates his new reality, he has to figure out how to hold on tight to family traditions and recollections of the glory days, all the while wondering what their past amounts to if his father can’t remember it.

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I picked up this novel from Jacqueline Woodson the minute I heard about it, because of my love for her 2020 MG release Before the Ever After. The story takes place the summer before Sage enters seventh grade, in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, called "The Matchbox" because buildings keep going up in flames. Her mother wants to move them to a safer neighborhood—especially because Sage's father died fighting one of those fires—but she's reluctant to leave the place that holds so many family memories. Woodson drew heavily on her own experience growing up in Bushwick in the 70s and 80s to pen this novel, and beautifully captures the dreams and pain of the tween years and the particular poignancy of Sage's struggles. This lyrical story of grief, change, and healing is especially good on audio, narrated by the author.

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