Second book read for the Buzzword reading challenge. Going into this, I did not realize that it was a non fiction. It is a book of poetry about Jacqueline Woodson's life growing up in Greenville, SC and New York. She is very descriptive about the settings and living in SC and everything southern. She also describes to racial tensions and how black people were regulated to the back of the bus and how they weren't supposed to sit at the counters in stores. She talks about the Black Panther organization and the revolution. She mentions a Vietnam war vet and the sadness in his eyes. What I loved about this was how she grew into her writing and listened and weaved her stories from that and how she grew from being a struggling reader.
Growing up in a prominent black neighborhood and being looked after by two black women who are more like family to me than my own blood, I was transported by to my childhood where I would go to my neighbors house and she did hair and I would just sit there and listen to all the gossip and laughter. I remember playing with my best friend at her grandma's house on the other side of my house and we would run in and out of the house which is a big no no and the door slamming behind us and getting yelled at and to stop slammin the damn door and being chased with a switch.
Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness and what she couldn't do was very knowledgeable and I learned things from this. I was heartbroken by her countless family deaths. Her grandfather's was a punch in the gut because my grandfather died of lung cancer and kept smoking until the day he died.
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