Jacqueline Woodson and Remember Us: A Children's History Book Prize Finalist

May 21, 2024

Jacqueline Woodson and Remember Us: A Children's History Book Prize Finalist

This interview is one of four in a series on this year’s finalists for New-York Historical's Children’s History Book Prize. Join us here as we talk to the authors to learn more about their amazing books. Our jury of teachers, librarians, historians, and middle-grade readers will help us select the winner, who will receive a $10,000 prize. We hope this prize elevates the winner and encourages authors and publishers to continue to create challenging, engaging, and well-researched history books for kids!

This week, we’re chatting with author Jacqueline Woodson about her book Remember Us. Inspired by her own childhood memories of growing up in Bushwick, Brooklyn in the 1970s and 1980s, Woodson’s novel introduces us to basketball-loving Sage the summer before she turns twelve. A summer where houses in her community are burning and the newspaper refers to her neighborhood as “The Matchbox.”

DiMenna Children's History Museum (DCHM): Although Remember Us is a work of fiction, Bushwick being referred to as “The Matchbox” during your childhood is a true fact. Can you share a little about the history of the building fires?

Jacqueline Woodson (JM): When I was growing up, there were many fires in Brooklyn and in the Bronx. These fires were mainly in tenement buildings—buildings there were four or five stories tall with multiple apartments. Often, the people in these apartments were underserved—immigrants and people recently migrated from the south. The landlords were negligent, the wiring was often bad. Often people had other issues with these buildings—no hot water, no working plumbing, etc. These apartment buildings were the ones that often burned. Yes, sometimes the smaller buildings caught fire (or as we later learned) were set on fire.

Photograph from the author's collection.

Now, years later, this neighborhood is very different. Homes have been built where the burning buildings once stood. The history of the fires is a little known one. As a kid, I was embarrassed that my neighborhood was called the Matchbox and that this was where I lived. As a teenager, when we gave Manhattan taxi drivers our address, they refused to drive us to Bushwick (even though this was against the law). But decades later, I don’t want this history forgotten. This history, like so much of American history, is a part of who we are and deserves to be acknowledged and remembered.

DCHM: Have you walked through Bushwick recently? In what ways has it remained the same as the Bushwick of your childhood and in what ways has it changed?

JM: Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time on my old block in Bushwick. Some of my friends from childhood still live there. What was once “the Matchbox” is now an “artists’ neighborhood”. People pay high rents to live there. The trees that were planted when I was a child are now decades old, shading blocks that once blistered from the heat. The basketball courts are gone, replaced by Astroturf and soccer fields. Fancy restaurants have sprung up and so many people who lived there when I was young have either passed away or can’t afford to live there anymore.

Photograph from the author's collection.

DCHM: Sage is far more comfortable on a basketball court than with the other girls doing stereotypically girly things. Is this a way in which Sage is like you?

JM: When I was a kid, I had my ‘girls’—one, Maria, is still a very close friend. But yes, I loved hanging with the guys and they often did NOT want me around. Because there were very few sports that girls were allowed to play, the only way to get in a game was to join the guys. And in order to do so, you had to be really good. I wasn’t. So I spent a lot of time watching. I wish I had the skills Sage had!!

DCHM: Were there any particular sources you looked at for research while writing this book?

JM: I returned to the Brooklyn Historical Society (I used this resource when writing Another Brooklyn), the Grand Army Plaza Library, and the stories of friends and relatives who remembered the time.

DCHM: What three words would you use to describe Remember Us?

JM: Nostalgic. Fiery. Evergreen.

Thank you Jacqueline!

Jacqueline Woodson is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim and a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship. Other awards include the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, and she was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award, as well as the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award.

Keep Reading

Keep Reading

Our Favorite Children’s Books to Celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month

What Does Hispanic Heritage Month Mean to Me?

Create Your Own Bookmark Characters!

Who Was Hercules Posey? A Q&A with Historian Ramin Ganeshram

Champion History

Sign Up for Our Newsletter