I often lament the decline of Western civilization by the
amount of time all of us spend on screens and not doing things of substance,
like bear baiting and collecting leeches for the ill.
But every once in a while good literary things happen to the
family.
My kids and I have read Brown Girl Dreaming, by
Jacqueline Woodson, a memoir told in succinct poetry. Brown Girl won the
National Book Award and was widely praised as a true achievement.
More importantly, my guys, a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old,
really responded to it. The feeling of racial injustice was something
that they both became more aware of through the poems. My son liked the book so
much he picked it up for a second time, again brought
back into the world of race relations and Jehova’s Witnesses in places like New York City
and the South in the 60s and 70s.
Initially I picked up the book as a way to connect with
younger readers. But like the great book this is, who the author intended it for became irrelevant as I was swept away.
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