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Jacqueline Woodson

Middle Grade/Young Adult

book cover of Behind You

Behind You

Even after he dies, Jeremiah and the people he loved can’t seem to figure out how to move on. Told in vignettes, this is the story of two teenagers who suddenly lose each other.

Where it takes place:

Fort Greene, Brooklyn and Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Where I wrote it:

At home in Brooklyn and in Manhattan.

Why I wrote it:

I had written a book called If You Come Softly. Once I finished that book, the characters still haunted me. Then 911 happened and I was faced with trying to figure out how we move on when we lose people so suddenly. I started thinking about it all and this book began.

Awards
  • 2005 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
  • YALSA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults for 2005
  • New York Public Library Best Book for Teens 2005
  • ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for adults, children, and adolescents. She is best known for her National Book Award-Winning memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. Her picture books The Day You Begin and The Year We Learned to Fly were NY Times Bestsellers. After serving as the Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2018–19. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2020. Later that same year, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.