Jacqueline Woodson | Fiction

This book is a Huffington Post recommendation. For the first few pages, I couldn’t understand why this quick, short book was recommended. It is a very fast read. I read it in an afternoon, lakeside, during which I also finished a watercolor painting and took a spin on the lake in my kayak.

It is the story of four girls who become friends on the chillingly dangerous streets of Brooklyn in the 1970s.  We learn in the afterward that the author herself grew up in this place, though her characters are all fiction.  The reader can feel that Woodson knows the place about which she writes; knows it intimately and personally.

The four young women tell themselves lies as they encounter disappearing mothers, madness, and not-so-innocent men and boys.  Another Brooklyn packs a hard punch.  It is memorable and satisfying. Take but a few hours, do yourself a favor, and read this award-winning pencil-thin book.