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Jacqueline Woodson

Poetry

Young People’s Poet Laureate

On June 1, 2015 I began a two-year term as
Young People’s Poet Laureate.

Wondering what that is? The Poetry Foundation’s website describes it this way: “the Young People’s Poet Laureate aims to raise awareness”. As Young People’s Poet Laureate, I served two years advising the Poetry Foundation and engaged in projects designed to instill a lifelong love of poetry in children.

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.