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Book Reviewed by:Winner: BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023
National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson brings readers a powerful story that delves deeply into life's burning questions about time and memory and what we take with us into the future.
It seems like Sage's whole world is on fire the summer before she starts seventh grade. As house after house burns down, her Bushwick neighborhood gets referred to as "The Matchbox" in the local newspaper. And while Sage prefers to spend her time shooting hoops with the guys, she's also still trying to figure out her place inside the circle of girls she's known since childhood. A group that each day, feels further and further away from her.
But it's also the summer of Freddy, a new kid who truly gets Sage. Together, they reckon with the pain of missing the things that get left behind as time moves on, savor what's good in the present, and buoy each other up in the face of destruction. And when the future comes, it is Sage's memories of the past that show her the way forward. Remember Us speaks to the power of both letting go ... and holding on.
Excerpt
Remember Us
After the year of fire
vines rise up
through the rest of our lives
of smoke
of flame
of memory.
As if to say
We're still here.
As if to say
Remember us.
1
The moon is bright tonight. And full. Hanging low above the house across the street where an orange curtain blows in and out of my neighbors' window. Out and in. And past the curtain there's the golden light of their living room lamps. Beyond that, there is the pulsing blue of their television screen. I see this all now. I see a world continuing.
And in the orange and gold and blue I'm reminded again of the year when sirens screamed through my old neighborhood and smoke always seemed to be billowing. Somewhere.
That year, from the moment we stepped out of our houses in the morning till late into the night, we heard the sirens. Down Knickerbocker. Up Madison. Across Cornelia. Both ways on Gates Avenue. Down Ridgewood Place. Rounding the corners of Putnam, Wilson, Evergreen ...
...
BookBrowse Awards
2023
Winner: BookBrowse YA Book Award 2023
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...continued
Full Review
(574 words)
(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
In her novel Remember Us, author Jacqueline Woodson draws from her own experiences growing up in 1970s New York. Her protagonist's hometown of Bushwick is plagued by housefires, landing it the callous nickname "The Matchbox."
Bushwick wasn't the only community affected by numerous fires at the time. Records show that by mid-1974, the number of serious blazes across the city of New York had risen by 40% over the past three years. Worse still, the civilian death rate from fires had risen by 35% over just the past year. Brooklyn, where Bushwick is located, and the Bronx were hit particularly hard. In seven Bronx census tracts, fires destroyed more than 97% of buildings throughout the '70s, while a further 44 tracts in the borough lost more ...
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