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“We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality…Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art—the art of words.” – Ursula K. Le Guin, 2014 National Book Awards

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“I love how much love there is in the world of young adult and children’s literature, and how much deep respect we have for each other, how we know the world wouldn’t be complete without all of our stories in it.” – Jacqueline Woodson, 2014 National Book Awards 

Pain

This mission is what’s been passed down to me — to write stories that have been historically absent in this country’s body of literature, to create mirrors for the people who so rarely see themselves inside contemporary fiction, and windows for those who think we are no more than the stereotypes they’re so afraid of. To give young people — and all people — a sense of this country’s brilliant and brutal history, so that no one ever thinks they can walk onto a stage one evening and laugh at another’s too often painful past. – Jacqueline Woodson, “The Pain of the Watermelon Joke”

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