photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Author Jacqueline Woodson answers a question from a student at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School on April 20, 2023.

The questions that Liberty Memorial Central Middle School students posed to award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson during her visit to the school on Thursday included what kind of middle school student she was, how she feels about being a role model, and what advice she has for marginalized students.

Woodson has written 35 books for children, adolescents and adults, including her memoir, “Brown Girl Dreaming,” and has been awarded some of the most prestigious awards in literature. She said that although she liked writing and reading in middle school, she has always been a slow reader, and was not a great student.

“I got in trouble for talking all the time, I got in trouble for making up stories, I got in trouble for not paying attention, but I read all the time,” Woodson said. “After school I went to the library around the corner until my mom got home from work, so I spent a lot of time there reading. And I loved writing; even from the time I was 7, I loved writing.”

And realizing that was key, she said, even though because she was a slow reader — she thinks these days she might have been diagnosed as dyslexic or having some kind of a reading difference — her desire to be a writer didn’t make sense to people.

“But I realized as an adult that when you find the thing you love doing, you become really good at it because you love doing it,” she said.

But at first Woodson did not write about people who looked like her or her own experience. In response to a question about what she wrote about when she was in middle school, Woodson said she wrote “a lot of bad poetry” and about white kids in the country, because those were the books she was reading at that time, and she thought that was what she had to write to be published.

“I didn’t think I could write about my own life and someone would actually care,” she said. “And I think that’s why ‘Brown Girl Dreaming’ was so surprising to me.”

She said she realized in high school that she could write about what was familiar to her. And in Woodson’s roughly three decades as a published writer, her storytelling and lyrical prose have won her some of the highest accolades in literature.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Author Jacqueline Woodson answers a question from a student at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School on April 20, 2023.

Woodson is best known for her memoir “Brown Girl Dreaming,” which is written in verse and won the National Book Award, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles “After Tupac and D Foster,” “Feathers” and “Show Way,” according to her website. Her picture books “The Day You Begin” and “The Year We Learned to Fly” were New York 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 2018-2019. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2020. Later that same year, she was named a MacArthur Fellow, commonly known as a “Genius Grant.”

Woodson’s work has been described as powerful and groundbreaking, and one student asked Woodson how she feels about being a role model for young girls. Woodson said she loves being able to communicate with people through her writing and the idea of allowing people to be their full selves.

“I love that I can be who I am in the world, and that’s a mirror for other people to be who they are, you know, 100%, in the world,” she said. “That we don’t have to hide any of our amazing selves.”

Some questions from the students were on the lighter side, such as what is her favorite food (New York style pizza) and what music she listened to growing up (she said Tupac Shakur is one of her all-time favorite artists, but she’s always listened to a variety of music). Other questions, like Woodson’s books themselves, did not shy away from difficult topics.

One student asked her what books changed her life, to which Woodson first named “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,” by Mildred D. Taylor, the minimalist writing of Raymond Carver, the work of Carson McCullers, as well as the writings of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and James Baldwin.

Toward the end of the assembly, a student asked what advice Woodson had for marginalized students to maintain hope. Woodson said she thought their generation had so many more tools — she mentioned a walkout organized by social media against a lack of racial integration in New York schools that resulted in tens of thousands of students walking out — and that their generation was simply “not here for it.” Instead, she said they were determined to leave something different to the next generation.

“So you’re already doing the work,” she said. “So the marginalization of feeling like you’re outside looking in or the feeling like there’s some force trying to oppress you, you’re already fighting against.”

All Central language arts students came up with questions for Woodson, and 11 students who were on stage with Woodson selected the questions they wanted to ask her. In addition to Central students, fifth-grade elementary students who will attend Central next year attended the assembly.

Woodson’s visit was part of the annual Ross & Marianna Beach Author series, which is a program of the Lawrence Public Library and the library’s Friends & Foundation. Woodson will also take part in a free event for the public at 7 p.m. Thursday at Liberty Hall.

photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

Author Jacqueline Woodson poses for a photo with Liberty Memorial Central Middle School students who participated in a question and answer session with her at the school on April 20, 2023.