Compte rendu de la nou velle de Jacqueline Woodson
About the author Jacqueline Woodson:
She was born on February 12th in 1963 in Ohio. She writes books for children and adolescents and sometimes for adults. She has written stories since she was a child because she loved making fake stories. Now she lives in Brooklyn, her childhood city, with her daughter and her son.
About the novel:
"My Crazy Beautiful World" is a short realistic story written by Jacqueline Woodson that we have studied in class. Jacqueline Woodson has talk a lot about African-American history in her different novel, like “Show Way”.
We can't talk about an autobiography (like in another novel of Gary Sotto in a "A significant event" that we saw in class)because the main character is Angela, a 16 years old girl, but it seems that Jacqueline was inspired by her own life story. She talk about a girl who make a step back in the past and who asks questions to herself about her identity and her beauty and who compares herself with the others like her best friend Maria the “pretty one” or her sister Dana the “smart one”, .Teasing is also a important theme in the novel, because she remember how she was annoyed by her classmates, who called her “Jolly Green Giant). That’s all the reasons why she feels a little bit insecure. Religion (She is a Jehovah Witness) and freedom are also evocated in this lovely short novel, and we can understand that Angelina has a very tight relationship with her grand-mother, they are familiar together even if they don’t have the same religion, contrary to the relation she had with her mother, because she is not this close to her.This young girl is looking for freedom tht she doesn't really have with the the rules that her mom impose to her,like she can't watching a fight in the street for example.The theme of identity and how she belong to the world is very present all along the novel.
“I wanted to write about communities that were familiar to me and people that were familiar to me. I wanted to write about communities of color. I wanted to write about girls. I wanted to write about friendship and all of these things that I felt like were missing in a lot of the books that I read as a child”
This story, which talks about every theme that we can see in life of everyday in a teenager’s life, it is accessible for everybody who wants to spend a good time! Think about how you can easily identify yourself with Angela and her insecurity. Did you ever feel like you don’t belong here? Like you are not free to do anything that you want ? That you are different when you compare yourself with the other ? Just pick up this book, it will show you that you are not the only one to feel like this! I really think you should read this book because you are going to love it!
