February is Black History Month and this book of poetry is the best kind of history, first-person history, family history straight from the family. The book even begins with a family tree. 

Don’t let the YA library sort deter you. The book is about a child but not by or only for a child. I read it straight through and I will likely read it again. There are scenes of the equality marches that Woodson witnessed, she tells us about being followed in the stores, lest she steal, which she never did. But far more often we are privileged to see up close a family raise four children who are loved, well cared for, well spoken and talented. As a writer, my favorite poems here is “composition notebook” in which the child Jacqueline cannot yet write but is in love with a blank book: “For days and days, I could only sniff the pages, / hold the notebook close … // Nothing in the world like this– / a bright white page with / pale blue lines. …” How could this child not grow up to be a winner of the National Book Award, a Newbery Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Award?

Wouldn’t it be fine if all children’s dreams came true?