Recent Reads

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson

December 2020

Once I read Brown Girl Dreaming and Another Brooklyn, I was hooked on Woodson’s  beautiful writing, even though she often writes for YA readers, even in this case.  Meeting her at the Tucson Book Festival was an honor, and I recall telling her (even if I am old enough to be her mother) how much her writing inspires me, both for adults and YA readers, even acknowledging that I turn to her writing when I am stuck, and just want to hear some good language, some beautiful writing, to pull me out of writers block.  It works!

ZJ’s father is a football star, a pro tight end, at the top of his game when he begins to “forget,” what he was saying, begins to not recognize ZJ’s friends, even though he sees them every day, and becomes moody and sullen around ZJ and his mother. One day a doctor wonders if he has had too many concussions, and so begins a saga, the telling of what it is like for players and their families when CTE, chronic, traumatic, encephalopathy invades a person in his prime.

Written in verse, it’s a vibrant, meaningful tale that YA readers may follow to understand this disease, recently named and discovered in 2002. And perhaps decide if football and other concussive-identified sports are worth the risk.