Woodson's "Brown Girl Dreaming"

 In her memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqeline Woodson talks a lot about her struggle with reading and how she was constantly compared to her sister who was always at a higher reading level than her. Woodson is told that she reads too slowly and child-like. She cannot escape the comparison to her sister regardless of her assertion, “I am not my sister” (Woodson, 226). 

Woodson is able to momentarily escape this comparison when her mom takes her to the library. Woodson is able to pick out the books she wants to read, not what other people believe she should read. Woodson reflects that “those days, no one tells me to read faster/to read harder books/to read like Dell” (Woodson, 227). When Woodson has freedom in what she reads, she picks a picture book. The characters in this book are people of color and Woodson is drawn to this aspect. She says that if she had not read that book she would not believe “that someone like [her]/ had a story” (Woodson, 228). This stood out to me because it shows how impactful literature can be. Woodson was deeply moved by this book because she saw herself in the characters. This was empowering for Woodson and it is something that stuck with her into her adult life. If Woodson had been so consumed with the comparison between her and her sister, she likely would not have read the picture book. Woodson could have seen the comparison as a competition in which Woodson kept trying to read books at a higher level of difficulty. If she had done that, she would have missed out on reading the book about Stevie. 

Reading is about the individual and about how they consume the material they are reading. This should have nothing to do with what the people around them are reading; yet, too often children are compared to one another and told they should be able to to read like someone else. I witnessed this happen growing up in elementary school where kids would be compared and ranked based on their ability to read challenging books. This fostered a mentality about reading books quickly to move to the next reading level and moved focus away from internalizing the messages and ideas in the books that were being read. If this is how reading is being taught in schools, it makes me wonder about the amount of stories that children miss out on because they are too focused on being labeled a stronger reader.