Remember Us
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Overview
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.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780399545467
- ISBN-10: 0399545468
- Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
- Publish Date: October 2023
- Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.65 pounds
- Page Count: 192
- Reading Level: Ages 10-UP
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Remember Us (Nancy Paulsen, $18.99, 9780399545467) packs an understated but powerful punch. National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical coming-of-age novel is set in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1970s, when people called Bushwick “the Matchbox” because so many houses and buildings were burning down—some purposely set on fire by their own landlords in hopes of collecting insurance money. Although Remember Us is fiction, Woodson notes in an afterword that the novel is inspired by her own childhood: “We knew people who had lost their homes to fire, and my family worried about our own house going up in flames.” For 12-year-old narrator Sage, who dreams of becoming the first woman player in the NBA, seventh grade is “the year when, one by one, the buildings on Palmetto melted into a mass of rock and ash and crumbled plaster.” It’s also the year that she befriends Freddy, who shares her love of basketball. Sage’s deep sense of nostalgia intertwines with a palpable fear of those fires, which act as a metaphor for Sage’s recognition that her body and her world are changing: The present is constantly turning into the “once was.” Sage and her mother live in the boyhood home of Sage’s late father, who belonged to the Vulcan Society (a fraternity of Black firemen) and died in a fire. Although Sage hardly remembers him, she cherishes using his basketball. “He, too, was a part of the once was,” she muses. “And soon I’d be part of the once was of Bushwick, of my block, of the park and the hundreds of basketball games I’d played there.” Remember Us has the feel of a new classic, ageless in its universal themes while wonderfully rendering a specific time and place. The pure magic of this novel is that Woodson somehow makes readers feel as though they are experiencing these moments of growing up along with Sage. Woodson flawlessly intersperses explosive moments—and games of basketball—among quiet, reflective scenes while responding to Sage’s weighty fears with reassurance about the permeance of loving memories.
Remember Us (Nancy Paulsen, $18.99, 9780399545467) packs an understated but powerful punch. National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical coming-of-age novel is set in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1970s, when people called Bushwick “the Matchbox” because so many houses and buildings were burning down—some purposely set on fire by their own landlords in hopes of collecting insurance money. Although Remember Us is fiction, Woodson notes in an afterword that the novel is inspired by her own childhood: “We knew people who had lost their homes to fire, and my family worried about our own house going up in flames.” For 12-year-old narrator Sage, who dreams of becoming the first woman player in the NBA, seventh grade is “the year when, one by one, the buildings on Palmetto melted into a mass of rock and ash and crumbled plaster.” It’s also the year that she befriends Freddy, who shares her love of basketball. Sage’s deep sense of nostalgia intertwines with a palpable fear of those fires, which act as a metaphor for Sage’s recognition that her body and her world are changing: The present is constantly turning into the “once was.” Sage and her mother live in the boyhood home of Sage’s late father, who belonged to the Vulcan Society (a fraternity of Black firemen) and died in a fire. Although Sage hardly remembers him, she cherishes using his basketball. “He, too, was a part of the once was,” she muses. “And soon I’d be part of the once was of Bushwick, of my block, of the park and the hundreds of basketball games I’d played there.” Remember Us has the feel of a new classic, ageless in its universal themes while wonderfully rendering a specific time and place. The pure magic of this novel is that Woodson somehow makes readers feel as though they are experiencing these moments of growing up along with Sage. Woodson flawlessly intersperses explosive moments—and games of basketball—among quiet, reflective scenes while responding to Sage’s weighty fears with reassurance about the permeance of loving memories.