ANOTHER BROOKLYN

by Jaqueline Woodson

Another Brooklyn reminds me of a soap bubble. It is a beautifully sweet and sad book that took less than two days to read. It is a book about memory, and I find it hovering in my memory ever since I finished it.

Woodson tells the story of August, a young Black girl from Tennessee who moves to Brooklyn with her father and brother in the 1970s. She indelibly conjures the first years when her father didn’t allow the kids to leave the apartment alone and the friends August makes when they finally do go out.  When August joins a group of three other girls, they become inseparable, coming of age and discovering themselves while they each work towards achieving their dreams.

Another Brooklyn, which reads like a poem, is about growing up as a Black girl in a city that feels like home but which in many ways is not safe.  Woodson’s writing is evocative and spare while it creates a perfect vision, however fleeting, of a time and place long gone. (Lily)