Jacqueline Woodson

Miracle’s Boys

By Jacqueline Woodson

Grades 5-8

4 Stars

Lafayette’s parents have died and his older brother Charlie has come back from reform school hardened and hateful.  With the help of his other brother, Ty’ree, Lafayette comes to terms with his losses and extends a hand to Charlie to help him get over his own sadness and regrets.

Show Way

By Jacqueline Woodson

Illustrated by Hudson Talbott

Grades 2-6

5 Stars

This story traces the author’s family back to times of slavery.  It shows each generation passing down the art of creating show quilts, and each person remaining strong, loving, and creative despite the difficulties of slavery, working hard to earn a living, and fighting for civil rights.  The story ends with the author telling her own daughter the history of her family.

Woodson’s work often features characters who are African Americans who live in the inner city.  The characters often have to deal with difficult life circumstances such as death and violence.  This is certainly true of Miracle’s Boys and to some degree, Woodson’s picture book, Show Way.  In Miracle’s Boys, Lafayette and Charlie come in contact with gang members.  Charlie was sent to reform school for robbing a candy store with a gun.  The three brothers are barely getting and Ty’ree had to give up his opportunity to attend MIT in order to take care of his younger brothers. 

Show Way tells of Woodson’s family history, beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, who was separated from her family when she was sold as a slave at the age of seven.  This book doesn’t explicitly mention violence, but shows generation after generation of the women in Woodson’s family separated from their loved ones due to slavery until after the Civil War.

Both stories show families who rise above difficult, really unimaginable life circumstances.  The characters are quietly heroic.  Ty’ree sacrifices his own aspirations to take care of his younger brothers.  The women in Show Way love their daughters and pass on the ability to create quilts that show other slaves the way to escape to the north, despite the fact that they inevitably become separated from their daughters when they are sold away.  In the most difficult of circumstances, these people show grace, create beauty, and hold their heads high.