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Jacqueline Woodson

Picture Books

book cover of Sweet Sweet Memory

Sweet, Sweet Memory

Illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Sarah’s grandfather was a gardener. When he dies, he leaves behind his beliefs about the world and a harvest to help her remember him and know that the circle of life goes on and on.

Where it takes place:

I wanted it to be set somewhere in South Carolina.

Where I wrote it:

At home in Brooklyn.

Why I wrote it:

I wrote this book in memory of my grandfather, Ganaar, who was a gardener. Whenever I see beautiful gardens filled with vegetables or flowers, I think of him.

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.