BookBrowse Reviews Remember Us by Jacqueline Woodson

BookBrowse:

A bittersweet meditation on the nature of friendship, memory, and finding one's place in the world.

BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023

Remember Us is set largely across a single hazy summer of the 1970s in Bushwick, New York. With the neighborhood nicknamed "The Matchbox" by the press due to an ongoing spate of deadly housefires, 12-year-old Sage has grown up against a backdrop of sirens, ash, and dread over whose home will be next to burn. Basketball is her escape from the anxiety, and despite being the only girl on the local courts, she dreams of pursuing a future in professional sports. That is, until an encounter with a bully and the echo of his words — "What kind of girl are you, anyway?" — leaves her shaken.

Scared away from the courts for the first time in her life, Sage feels her entire identity is unmoored. Should she continue to strive for success as a girl in the male-dominated world of basketball, or should she conform and attempt to fit in with the popular girls at school, from whom she feels adrift? As Sage wrestles with who she is and what she wants for her future, her mother saves to try to move them to a safer neighborhood, despite the potential wrench of leaving loved ones behind.

Though never heavy-handed, there is definite commentary on class divide and the correlation between wealth and safety. As the cheaper, older, wood-built properties of Sage's working-class community continue to go up in flames, the neighboring middle-class streets lined with modern brick houses remain untouched. Bushwick is easy for outsiders to write off as condemned, but author Jacqueline Woodson shows that many moments of beauty and joy can make up childhoods even in troubled areas. Sage spends hours playing with friends, singing and dancing with loved ones, and sharing food with neighbors. These seemingly small moments stay with her as much as the fear of the fires, showing that moving on is rarely a straightforward decision.

Woodson strikes an excellent balance of accessibility and poignancy with her writing, lending the novel genuine appeal to a broad readership. While Remember Us is aimed at younger audiences and her adolescent protagonist feels authentic, its themes of place, memory, identity, and belonging will ring true for readers of any age. It never seems as though Woodson is patronizing younger readers by simplifying the complex themes and emotions at play, and she never resorts to clichés or saccharine prose. Take this moment of clarity for Sage, which considers the mindsets of adolescents and adults alike:

"I had finally come to understand the hollowness in my chest. All year, I had already been missing all of this, even though it was right in front of me. Right in front of me but, building by building, burning away. When I finally asked my mother about it, she said That's what growing up feels like."

Though relatively slight and easy to devour in a single sitting, Woodson's novel rarely feels rushed. It captures the mood of a very specific time and place by maintaining a focus on character over action. Understated and ruminative, Remember Us is the kind of book that leaves its mark on you subtly, over time. The relatively scant narrative follows a linear and predictable path, arguably lacking a stand-out gut-punch moment, but a heady feeling of melancholy hangs over the story, reflecting the sad reality of saying goodbye to the people and places that shaped us as children so that we may become the adults we want to be.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in November 2023, and has been updated for the December 2023 edition. Click here to go to this issue.