brown girl dreaming CW Crossword

This word was used alot to symbolize Jacqueline's birth state, "Ohio. The Buckeyed State" and basically anyone who was native to ohio "no colored Buckeye in his right mind would ever want to go there."
Jacqueline wrote her first book about this."Butterflies by Jaqueline Woodson on the front." This is important because all the events in the story lead up to/start from this point. She starts from wanting to be a writer, "I want to be a writer." To teaching herself how to write, "this is how I learn." To writing a book, "I am writing a book about butterflies". From there she writes even more books "Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson". This helped make her into who she is today (a writer).
When she was born, her hand was in a fist. She compares her fist to famous people fighting for their rights and equality. Then she says "I do not know who I'll be what I'll say how I'll say it." This builds suspense for the reader by making the reader question who she will be. This also foreshadows her becoming a writer.
This is what her father's side family refers to as "home" in the the story "welcome home my grandparents say."
This is Jacqueline's birth place and what her mother's side of the family refers to as "home" in the story "New York, my mother says. Soon I'll find us a place there. Comeback and bring you all home."
She compares this to painted over white only signs in the bathroom "they painted over the white only signs, except on the bathroom doors, they didn't use a lot of paint so you can still see the words, right there like a ghost standing in front still keeping you out." Even after the segregation ended, she still felt excluded. This is important because this is another reason she wrote the book (to talk about her life during and after segregation).
For jacqueline, this came hard "words from books curl around each other make little sense." This shows that eventhough she was good at writing, she wasn't good at reading. Further threw the text, she shows how she deals with it "I memorize them, reading the same books over and over, copying lyrics to songs from records and TV commercials."
In book it talks about her having two homes (the North and the South). She refers to each as "halfway home." She talks about her experiences in both homes. Jacqueline contemplates which home is home because her mother moved alot. This is an internal conflict that Jacqueline had delt with throughout the entire book "will we have to choose between home and home?"
Jaqueline compares the way they run to South Carolina memories in her blood. "I am born in Ohio but the stories of South Carolina already run like rivers through my veins." She was born at the height of the civil rights movement. She goes on to explain when she was born in ohio, people from South Carolina (part of her genetic roots) are fighting for their rights. This symbolizes that right after she was born, these events already define her.
The author compares stories to this natural phenomenon. "How can I explain to anyone that stories are like air to me, I breathe them in an let them out over and over again." This simile shows how Jacqueline takes in stories. She reads them over and over again. Jacqueline compares it to air to show the readers that it is natural and instinct to her.
It becomes clear to the readers her love of writing her name. From when she could write only one letter, she fell in love "I cannot write a word yet but at three, I know the letter J /love the way it curves into a hook." To when she finally wrote her name "write Jacqueline Woodson the way I've done a hundred times, turn back toward my seat, proud as anything."
She is Jaqueline's older sister. In the book, Odella is always a step ahead of Jacqueline "I am the other Woodson, following behind her each year." Jacqueline is always comparing herself to her "she is gifted we are told...I am not gifted."
When Jacqueline's mother left, her grandmother turned her and her siblings into Jehovah's Witnesses "we became Jehovah's Witnesses like her." This is a key point in the book because it goes on to shape Jaqueline's beliefs "I believe in God." She talks a lot about what it is like being a Jehovah's Witness and her experiences about it throughout the book "when the kids in my class ask why I am not allowed to pledge to the flag/ I tell them It's against my religion."
When Jacqueline goes to the fabric store with her grandmother, they feel human. She describes that in the fabric store they aren't labeled as thieves, "at the fabric store, we are not Colored or Negro. We are not thieves or shameful or something to be hidden away." Even after segregation they were still treated shamefully and suspicious. They were refered to as "thieves."
In the book Jacquline's little brother(Roman) is sick because he ate paint "one day, Roman wouldn't get up...she takes him to the hospital". At first Jacqueline didn't like Roman and she was jealous "I don't like the new baby." When he went to the hospital, she was the baby girl again. She ended up wishing for Roman to come back. "I am finally the baby girl again, wishing I wasn't." This shows the kinda character Jacqueline is. Jacqueline didn't realize her love for her baby brother because she let her jealousy get ahold of her.
The theme of this book is memories. Jacqueline wrote this book to share her memories with the world. She talks about her memories during "the training" and after "what everybody knows" segregation. Her memories in the South "the garden" and North "graffiti." And her memories of how she is a writer "writing."