"I watched my brother watch the world, his sharp, too-serious brow furrowing down in both angst and wonder. Everywhere we looked, we saw the people trying to dream themselves out. As though there was someplace other than this place. As though there was another Brooklyn." page 77.
Indeed, the characters' dreams and memories in Jacqueline Woodson's "Another Brooklyn" play a prominent role in their somewhat chaotic lives as they seek to find a place as young black teenage girls in 1970s Brooklyn. There is a certain irony in August's bleak assessment of life in Brooklyn, for it is supposed
to represent a new lease on life after fleeing a failed paradise in Tennessee where the disintegration of her family began after the passing of her mother. There is never a word out of place in Woodson's spare prose when depicting with a certain irony the futility of August's refusal or incapacity to overcome her rural past against the backdrop of her efforts to find her place in society in Brooklyn in the company of her three best friends who provide her with camaraderie in an albeit imperfect way. A deceptively simple work, brimming with epiphanies of wisdom painfully learned.
Prisoners of the past
"I watched my brother watch the world, his sharp, too-serious brow furrowing down in both angst and wonder. Everywhere we looked, we saw the people trying to dream themselves out. As though there was someplace other than this place. As though there was another Brooklyn." page 77.
Indeed, the characters' dreams and memories in Jacqueline Woodson's "Another Brooklyn" play a prominent role in their somewhat chaotic lives as they seek to find a place as young black teenage girls in 1970s Brooklyn. There is a certain irony in August's bleak assessment of life in Brooklyn, for it is supposed to represent a new lease on life after fleeing a failed paradise in Tennessee where the disintegration of her family began after the passing of her mother. There is never a word out of place in Woodson's spare prose when depicting with a certain irony the futility of August's refusal or incapacity to overcome her rural past against the backdrop of her efforts to find her place in society in Brooklyn in the company of her three best friends who provide her with camaraderie in an albeit imperfect way. A deceptively simple work, brimming with epiphanies of wisdom painfully learned.