Jacqueline Woodson : (6)

" My sister taught me how to write my name when I was about three. I remember writing my whole name: Jacqueline Amanda Woodson. I just loved the power of that, of being able to put a letter on the page and that letter meaning something. " - Jacqueline Woodson

" I feel like I am walking in some amazing footsteps of writers who have come before me, like S.E. Hinton, Walter Dean Myers, Christopher Paul Curtis, Richard Peck and Kate DiCamillo, who I love. " - Jacqueline Woodson

" I think, as a kid, turning on the television and seeing that everyone seemed to be wealthy and white made me feel like an outsider, lesser than. I was not wealthy. I was not white. " - Jacqueline Woodson

" I feel like, as a person of color, I’ve always been kind of doing the work against the tide. " - Jacqueline Woodson

" I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so not the case when I was a kid. " - Jacqueline Woodson

" The strength of my mother is something I didn’t pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, ‘I’m getting my kids out of here. I’m creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.’ " - Jacqueline Woodson