“What I’d love is this: That each time a reader closes a book I’ve written, he or she continues to think not only about the characters but also about the bigger world and greater good. I would love knowing that readers meet the people in my books and grow to love them. If a reader loves a character, he or she will want to keep that character and by extension, people like that character, safe. Reading has always been a way for me to grow—emotionally, intellectually, philosophically. My hope is that my books offer others this same opportunity.”
– Jacqueline Woodson on writing and reading.
Jacqueline Woodson is a three-time Newbery Honor-winner – in 2006 for Show Way, in 2008 for Feathers, and in 2009 for After Tupac and D Foster. Hush and Locomotion were both National Book Award finalists. She has been recognized by the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee for I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This, From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, and Locomotion, all Coretta Scott King Honor Books. From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun and I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This both received Jane Addams Peace Award Honors. Her highly acclaimed novel Miracle’s Boys won the Coretta Scott King Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and aired as a mini-series directed by, among others, Spike Lee. Her work has appeared on numerous Best Books and Notable lists.
In 2006, Woodson was the youngest person ever to win the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Young Adult Library Services Association. Her citation for that esteemed award states, “Woodson’s sensitive and lyrical books reveal and give voice to outsiders often invisible to mainstream America.” Her other lifetime achievement awards include the 2004 ALAN Award, 2010 St Katherine Drexel Award and the 2012 Anne V. Zarrow Award.
In 2009, she adapted her award-winning novel, Locomotion, for the stage. The play was presented by the Performances for Young Audiences Family Theatre at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. October 23 through November 4th 2010 and began a national tour in January, 2012.
Woodson’s best-selling picture book, The Other Side, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary in hardcover. Woodson’s newest picture book, Each Kindness, will be one of a select group of titles to launch Nancy Paulsen’s new imprint at Penguin Books in 2012. In February of 2012, Penguin will publish her newest young adult title, Beneath a Meth Moon.
