Jacqueline Woodson: 'The Real Thing' [Hardcover]

The biographical narratives about Woodson and discussions about themes in selected works are informative and interesting. Recommended.Although two critical studies of two different authors may be regarded, at first sight, as unlikely bedfellows to reside within one book review, Lois Stover's Jacqueline Woodson and Suzanne Reid's Virginia Euwer Wolff do fit together...each offers a sound biographical-critical author study characteristic of the Scarecrow Studies. Each draws reasonable conclusions about the relationship between writers' lives and the texts they write and each is passionate about her subject, a woman author who is highly regarded as a 'writer to read' in young adult literature....Overall, Stover writes critically, almost intimately, about Woodson's craft. She has produced a wealth of criticism in Jacqueline Woodson and laces her analysis with anecdotes about and interviews with Woodson...In each of these Scarecrow Studies in Young Literature, the authors meet the series expectations of demonstrating how a writer's life and attitudes influence the writer's craft and how the craft has evolved in each successive novel. Jacqueline Woodson and Virginia Euwer Wolff have each produced a body of work that is distinctive in its contribution to literature written for young adults.Being able to catch a rare personal glimpse of this remarkable writer makes this a worthwhile resource.Woodson's seventh grade English teacher returned her first short story to her with the comment, You are the real thing (1). Jacqueline Woodson: The Real Thing explores how Woodson became the real thing, why she deserves to be acknowledged as one of the finest writers for young adults today, who her literary mentors have been, and how her family history has helped to shape her as an artist, beginning with the success of her first novel, Last Summer with Maizon.Woodson's seventh grade English teacher returned her first short story to her with the comment, You are the real thing. TlÏ