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Another Brooklyn: A Novel Hardcover – Deckle Edge, August 9, 2016
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A Finalist for the 2016 National Book Award
New York Times Bestseller
A SeattleTimes pick for Summer Reading Roundup 2017
The acclaimed New York Times bestselling and National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming delivers her first adult novel in twenty years.
Running into a long-ago friend sets memory from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them.
But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion.
Like Louise Meriwether’s Daddy Was a Number Runner and Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn heartbreakingly illuminates the formative time when childhood gives way to adulthood—the promise and peril of growing up—and exquisitely renders a powerful, indelible, and fleeting friendship that united four young lives.
- Print length192 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAmistad
- Publication dateAugust 9, 2016
- Dimensions0.7 x 5 x 7.9 inches
- ISBN-100062359983
- ISBN-13978-0062359988
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Review
“Woodson’s unsparing story of a girl becoming a woman recalls some of the genre’s all-time greats: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Bluest Eye and especially, with its darkly poetic language, The House on Mango Street.” — Sarah Begley, Time
“An engrossing novel about friendship, race, the magic of place and the relentlessness of change.” — People Magazine
“Woodson manages to remember what cannot be documented, to suggest what cannot be said. Another Brooklyn is another name for poetry.” — Washington Post
“Woodson does for young black girls what short story master Alice Munroe does for poor rural ones: She imbues their everyday lives with significance.” — Elle
“In Jacqueline Woodson’s soaring choral poem of a novel…four young friends…navigate the perils of adolescence, mean streets, and haunted memory in 1970s Brooklyn, all while dreaming of escape.” — Vanity Fair
“Another Brooklyn joins the tradition of studying female friendships and the families we create when our own isn’t enough, like that of Toni Morrison’s Sula, Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow and Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde. Woodson uses her expertise at portraying the lives of children to explore the power of memory, death and friendship. — Los Angeles Times Book Review
“…it is the personal encounters that form the gorgeous center of this intense, moving novel...Structured as short vignettes, each reading more like prose poetry than traditional narrative, the novel unfolds as memory does, in burning flashes, thick with detail...” — New York Times Book Review
“With Another Brooklyn, Jacqueline Woodson has delivered a love letter to loss, girlhood, and home. It is a lyrical, haunting exploration of family, memory, and other ties that bind us to one another and the world.” — Boston Globe
“Woodson writes lyrically about what it means to be a girl in America, and what it means to be black in America. Each sentence is taut with potential energy, but the story never bursts into tragic flames; it stays strong and subtle throughout.” — Huffington Post
“Gorgeously written and moving, Another Brooklyn is an examination of the complexities of youth and adolescence, loss, friendship, family, race, and religion.” — Jarry Lee, Buzzfeed
“[E]ntwined coming-of-age narratives-lost mothers, wounded war vets, nodding junkies, menacing streetscapes-are starkly realistic, yet brim with moments of pure poetry.” — Elle Books Feature
“…fine-cadenced prose…” — Wall Street Journal
“The novel’s richness defies its slim page count. In her poet’s prose, Woodson not only shows us backward-glancing August attempting to stave off growing up and the pains that betray youth, she also wonders how we dream of a life parallel to the one we’re living.” — Booklist (Starred Review)
“Another Brooklyn reads like a love song to girlhood…” — Bustle
“emotionally resonant work” — Seattle Times
“Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn is a gauzy, lyrical fever dream of a book.” — Vox Magazine
“There are nothrowaway sentences in Another Brooklyn ― each short, poetic line feels carefully loved and polished. The first half of this novel asks urgent questions; the second delivers uneasy, heartbreaking answers. At its core, this book is about fragility, how light shines in the broken places.” — Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
“Jacqueline Woodson is a gorgeous writer…lyrical prose, really, really beautiful.” — Emma Straub, New York Times Bestselling author of Modern Lovers and The Vacationers
‘’…And Sister Jacqueline Woodson comes singing memory. Her words like summer lightning get caught in my throat and I draw her up from southern roots to a Brooklyn of a thousand names, where she and her three ‘sisters’ learn to navigate a new season. A new herstory. Everywhere I turn, my dear Sister Jacqueline, I hear your words, a wild sea pausing in the wind. And I sing…” — Sister Sonia Sanchez
“Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn is another kind of book, another kind of beautiful, a lyrical, hallucinatory, heartbreaking, and powerful novel. Every gorgeous page leads to another revelation, another poignant event or memory. This is an incredible and memorable book.” — Edwidge Danticat, author of Claire of the Sea Light
“Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn is another kind of book, another kind of beautiful, a lyrical, hallucinatory, heartbreaking, and powerful novel. Every gorgeous page leads to another revelation, another poignant event or memory. This is an incredible and memorable book.” — Ann Patchett, New York Times Bestselling Author of This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage and State of Wonder
“In this elegant and moving novel, Jacqueline Woodson explores the beauty and burden of growing up girl in 1970’s Brooklyn through the lens of one unforgettable narrator. The guarded hopes and whispered fears that August and her girlfriends share left me thinking about the limits and rewards of friendship well after the novel’s end. Full of moments of grief, grace, and wonder, Another Brooklyn proves that Jacqueline Woodson is a master storyteller.” — Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House, a finalist for the National Book Award
“Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn is a wonder. With a poet’s soul and a poet’s eye for image and ear for lyrical language, Woodson delivers a moving meditation on girlhood, love, loss, hurt, friendship, family, faith, longing, and desire. This novel is a love letter to a place, an era, and a group of young women that we’ve never seen depicted quite this way or this tenderly. Woodson has created an unforgettable, entrancing narrator in August. I’ll go anywhere she leads me.” — Naomi Jackson, author of The Star Side of Bird Hill
“Jacqueline Woodson’s spare, emphatic novel about young women growing up in 1970s Bushwick brings some of our deepest silences-about danger, loss, and black girls’ coming of age-into powerful lyric speech. Another Brooklyn is heartbreaking and restorative, a gorgeous and generous paean to all we must leave behind on the path to becoming ourselves.” — Tracy K. Smith, Pulitzer Prize-Winning author of Life on Mars and Ordinary Light
“A stunning achievement from one of the quietly great masters of our time.” — Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“Woodson…combines grit and beauty in a series of stunning vignettes, painting a vivid mural of what it was like to grow up African-American in Brooklyn during the 1970s…Woodson draws on all the senses to trace the milestones in a woman’s life and how her early experiences shaped her identity.” — Publishers Weekly, (Boxed and Starred Review)
“With spare yet poetic writing, this long-awaited adult novel by National Book Award winner Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming) is a series of vignettes narrated by August, shortly after her dad’s funeral and a chance encounter with an old friend.” — Library Journal (starred review)
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, given Woodson’s background not only as a novelist but also as a poet, Another Brooklyn is told in spare, lyrical prose, with a surface simplicity that belies its underlying narrative strength and emotional heft. Often, in Woodson’s novel, what isn’t said is as essential as what is, and readers come away feeling as if they, in the process of reading the novel, are somehow partners in Woodson’s project of telling her poignant and devastating story about dreams deferred, destroyed, and―in rare cases―realized.” — BookBrowser Review
From the Back Cover
For August, running into a long-ago friend sets in motion resonant memories and transports her to a time and a place she thought she had mislaid: 1970s Brooklyn, where friendship was everything.
August, Sylvia, Angela, and Gigi shared confidences as they ambled their neighborhood streets, a place where the girls believed that they were amazingly beautiful, brilliantly talented, with a future that belonged to them.
But beneath the hopeful promise there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where mothers disappeared, where fathers found religion, and where madness was a mere sunset away.
Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn heartbreakingly illuminates the formative period when a child meets adulthood—when precious innocence meets the all-too-real perils of growing up. In prose exquisite and lyrical, sensuous and tender, Woodson breathes life into memories, portraying an indelible friendship that united young lives.
Another Brooklyn is an enthralling work of literature from one of our most gifted novelists.About the Author
Jacqueline Woodson is the 2014 National Book Award Winner for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the Sibert Honor Award. She is also the author of New York Times bestselling novel Another Brooklyn (Harper/Amistad), which was a 2016 National Book Award Finalist and Woodson’s first adult novel in twenty years. In 2015, Woodson was named Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a three-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner.
http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/
Product details
- Publisher : Amistad; First Edition (August 9, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062359983
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062359988
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 0.7 x 5 x 7.9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,203,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,783 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #16,665 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #54,542 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Jacqueline Woodson's memoir BROWN GIRL DREAMING won the 2014 National Book Award and was a NY Times Bestseller. Her novel, ANOTHER BROOKLYN, was a National Book Award finalist and an Indie Pick in 2016. Among her many awards, she the recipient of the Kurt Vonnegut Award, four Newbery Honors, two Coretta Scott King Award, and the Langston Hughes Medal. Jacqueline is the author of nearly thirty books for young people and adults including EACH KINDNESS, IF YOU COME SOFTLY, LOCOMOTION and I HADN'T MEANT TO TELL YOU THIS. She served as Young People's Poet Laureate from 2014-2016, was a fellow at The American Library in Paris, occasionally writes for the New York Times, is currently working on more books and like so many writers - lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find this novel to be a beautiful story of growing up, with one review highlighting the brilliance of interweaving mother's story. The writing style receives praise for its lyrical quality and how it reflects the complicated nature of memory, and customers consider it a must-read. The character development receives mixed reactions, with some finding the characters true to life while others find them undeveloped. The book's length is also a point of contention, with several customers noting it's too short to be called a novel.
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Customers praise the beautiful story of growing up in this novel, describing it as a lovely tale of young women. One customer highlights the brilliance of interweaving the mother's story, while another notes its themes of loss, love, friendship, and survival.
"...mother will return and convinces her younger brother of the same, feels so honest, so real, so a part of how children really cope with the loss of a..." Read more
"...Jacqueline Woodson is able to accurately portray August's experiences with friendship, family, religion and sex...." Read more
"...it never loses sight of the possibility of a better future, and gratitude for life, with all its pain and problems. Highly recommended." Read more
"...The language is often lyrical and full of recurring imagery that enhances the voice of the author...." Read more
Customers praise the writing style of the book, describing it as wonderfully and beautifully lyrical, with one customer noting how it reflects the complicated nature of memory.
"Exquisite! Such a beautifully written piece of work, that it felt like poetry, both in the flow and the content...." Read more
"...This novel is written in a poetic and lyrical format about a young woman, August, growing up in 1970's Bushwick Brooklyn, New York...." Read more
"...writing has garnered so many awards, recognitions, her voice as a writer is so magical it has the ability to transport you back in time and walk..." Read more
"...The Brooklyn setting is engaging and all too familiar. The language is often lyrical and full of recurring imagery that enhances the voice of the..." Read more
Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as wonderful and remarkable, with one customer noting that it gets better with each read.
"...The ethereal quality of the book has in part to do with the fact that the narrator is looking way back on an earlier part of her life; in part..." Read more
"...Overall, this novel is a great read that touches upon many issues such as race, sex, gender stereotypes and religion." Read more
"...Lovely, lyrical, but unlike a dream, it stays with you. And what a treat that is. “’..." Read more
"What a soulful, gorgeous book this was. I would have given this six stars if that was possible...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's beauty, with one specifically mentioning its ugliness.
"...It is a stunning look at this place and time period, the struggles these girls faced as they came of age and the hope and courage needed to face it...." Read more
"Oh how I loved this book. Elegant, sparse, it read like a memoir that I wanted to go on forever. I kept forgetting that it was fiction...." Read more
"...style can take a short while to adjust to, but once you do, the achingly beautiful, almost poetic nature of the prose makes it hard not to be..." Read more
"...And what a good book it was. It made me smile, made me sad, made me girlish, and at times it made my womanhood flutter as memories crossed my own..." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the character development in the book, with some finding them true to life and evocative of community, while others find them undeveloped.
"...Her characters are just so true to life, without over doing it; you will see each character as a person you relate to...." Read more
"...There are many characters and it is hard to follow, but once you have it all figured out I can promise that you will not be able to stop...." Read more
"Loved it. Fell in love with the characters. The book takes you back to your own friendships and youth. Great and thought provoking." Read more
"Beautifully written, evocative portrait of characters and community...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's length, with many finding it too short to be considered a novel.
"Too short...." Read more
"A short masterpiece that allows one to feel a young black girl's losses and strengths. A lyrical work, one that I won't forget." Read more
"Way too short but oh so sweet" Read more
"...You get lost in her world, gaining insight. Short book that packs a lot in a few crafted words." Read more
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Heartbreaking and beautifully written
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2016Exquisite! Such a beautifully written piece of work, that it felt like poetry, both in the flow and the content. It has an ethereal dreamy quality and is full of rich metaphors.
I have been struggling with my review of this book, because whatever I seem to write doesn’t really do the book justice. It is such a unique beautiful piece of writing. The story begins with August, the narrator, returning by train to visit her dying father. She catches a glimpse of Sylvia, a childhood friend and memories come flooding back to her. The ethereal quality of the book has in part to do with the fact that the narrator is looking way back on an earlier part of her life; in part that she is remembering her childhood, one in which she could not comprehend or accept the death of her mother; and thirdly the poetic quality to the writing.
The idea that August thinks her mother will return and convinces her younger brother of the same, feels so honest, so real, so a part of how children really cope with the loss of a parent. Within the book, different cultural rites of death are mentioned reminding the reader that death is there, but not letting us know the actual circumstances of the mother’s death until later.
Once August arrives in Brooklyn with her father and brother, the father cages the children in the house worried about the dangers of the outside world. This backfires as her younger brother falls through the glass window injuring his arm in his attempts to watch the outside world. At this point, August and her brother are allowed outside to experience the world.
August reminisces about her female friendships from this era in her life. She had developed a close-knit group of girlfriends who become her “home, ” her family, and this allows her feel alive again, after feeling cooped up in their Brooklyn apartment. Together these girls feel stronger and braver. Their friendship gives them a sense of safety, of home, of togetherness that is lacking from their home environments. They grow into puberty together, date, experiment with sex. They confide in each other, things that they do not feel safe confiding to their own parents.
August’s mother’s words about not trusting female friendships keep echoing back to her. “Don’t trust women, my mother said to me. Even the ugly ones will take what you thought was yours.” August learns how this can be true as the friendships begin to slip and in some cases fracture. However, for a time, the friendships are a beautiful thing and allow the girls to feel powerful in a world where they are vulnerable, on account of being female, minorities and poor.
This reflection is of Brooklyn in the 1970’s in a neighborhood that is turning from white to black. While August finds comfort in her friendships, her father finds comfort in religion. It is a stunning look at this place and time period, the struggles these girls faced as they came of age and the hope and courage needed to face it. I highly recommend this to everyone.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2018Another Brooklyn is a novel written by Jacqueline Woodson published by Amistad in 2016. She is voice for children and adolescents in American literature and has won many prestigious awards. This novel is written in a poetic and lyrical format about a young woman, August, growing up in 1970's Bushwick Brooklyn, New York. August's father decides to move from SweetGrove, Tennessee to Brooklyn because August's mother is disturbed by her brother's death in Vietnam, ultimately leaving her behind.
August also struggles with acknowledging and accepting her mother's death and constantly hopes for her return throughout the novel. In the beginning, her father does not allow her to leave her house, therefore she spends a decent amount of time looking and wishing out the window. She spends her childhood growing up and becoming close friends with Sylvia, Gigi and Angela. These girls become each-others support system and encourage one another through their individual dreams and goals. Each friend has their own story and hardships to face. The girls go through a lot of ups and downs and are thrown many curve balls throughout the novel that test their friendship. The area of Bushwick is changing and many of August's white neighbors have moved away.
Jacqueline Woodson is able to accurately portray August's experiences with friendship, family, religion and sex. The audience vicariously lives through August's memories. When the girls reach puberty, they see their bodies changing and try to understand their sexual urges. The audience is able to experience August's first boyfriend, first period and first kiss. All of these milestones in a young woman's life create her identity. The plot is not clearly stated, therefore there is a lot of room for interpretation for the readers. Overall, this novel is a great read that touches upon many issues such as race, sex, gender stereotypes and religion.
Top reviews from other countries
- LReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 29, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars Love this writer!
ANOTHER BROOKLYN by JACQUELINE WOODSON
I read this book in the space of a few hours and as soon as I finished I turned back to the first page again. I didn’t read it all again - just that first page and it worked. It’s a cyclical book. It doesn’t need to be read in any particular order. Memories manifest in any way they want to.
This book is a series of memories told from the point of view of August; a teenager growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. She states early on in the book that life would have been different if she’d known about jazz, but all she knew of was the top 40 (white artists mostly). And “it never quite figured us out.” I found that one statement to be huge! It’s a 170 page novel, but that statement to me felt bigger than the messages I’ve taken from 1000 page novels. If we can’t see ourselves represented, how can we see ourselves at all? My own white privilege means that this is something I rarely have to think about, but this book helped me to understand how that might feel and it is a scary feeling.
Among issues such as institutionalised racism and that difficult period between childhood and teenagehood, this book also deals with loss of a parent. The first line of the novel completely floored me: “For a long time, my mother wasn’t dead yet.” Tell me you aren’t desperate to read this book based on that line alone!?
This book is lyrical and far-reaching in exactly the same way as Red at the Bone is, so if you liked that one then you really must read this one.
- MichelleReviewed in Canada on August 11, 2018
3.0 out of 5 stars The fleeting nature of memories
The opening paragraph of Another Brooklyn is a stunner:
"For a long time, my mother wasn't dead yet. Mine could have been a more tragic story. My father could have given in to the bottle or the needle or a woman and left my brother and me to care for ourselves—or worse, in the care of New York City Children's Services, where, my father said, there was seldom a happy ending. But this didn't happen. I know now that what is tragic isn't the moment. It is the memory."
Bam. With an opening paragraph like that, I was expecting a real tour de force.
In the end, the novel did not live up to the promise embodied by this very strong beginning, although it definitely has its merits. It’s a fever dream, like viewing a woman's childhood through a diaphanous curtain, everything hazy and yet the silhouettes very visible. Woodson taps into August's emotional truth and the ungraspable, fleeting nature of memories, the desire to understand the contours of one's past and the impossibility of ever really knowing the whys and wherefores of it.
When a child is unmoored, there is often a desperate attachment to childhood friendships, a desire to create a new family. Another Brooklyn captures this very well. There was truth in the way the characters eventually change and grow apart in late adolescence, each going her own way, leaving the others to fend for themselves in the adult world.
- NetteReviewed in Spain on November 17, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Great writing
I am still not finished with this book but I can already give it five stars. From the start the writing just captivated you. At least for me, I felt the subway scene deep with regards to old friendships.
- islanderianReviewed in Singapore on January 3, 2024
1.0 out of 5 stars Bad quality
Poor quality book. Pls see images.
islanderianBad quality
Reviewed in Singapore on January 3, 2024
Images in this review
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MarieReviewed in Germany on August 19, 2018
3.0 out of 5 stars Na ja
Ich bin nicht richtig begeistert von der Geschichte, die nicht wirklich eine ist.
Die angegebenen 192 Seiten sind recht großzügig berechnet, denn es wird viel Platz frei gelassen.