Puffin lands Jacqueline Woodson's New York Times bestseller

Puffin will publish Brown Girl Dreaming, the multi-award winning memoir told in verse by author Jacqueline Woodson.

Natalie Doherty, editorial director at Puffin, acquired UK and Irish rights from Siobhan O’Neill at WME. It will be published on 2nd April.

This “stunningly written and important story” was published by Penguin Random House US in 2014, and is a New York Times bestseller and a multi-award-winner. Among other accolades it was a National Book Award Winner, a Newbery Honor Book and a Coretta Scott King Award Winner, as well as being a President Obama 'O' Book Club pick. 

“Told in vivid, powerful and emotional poetry, Brown Girl Dreaming is the unforgettable story of a childhood spent between New York and South Carolina, and of never truly feeling at home in either place. Of growing up as an African-American girl in the 1960s and 1970s, in the wake of the civil rights movement. Of discovering the first sparks of an incredible gift for writing, which would last a lifetime. And of one girl's search for her voice, her identity, and her place in the world.”

Doherty said: “We have long admired Brown Girl Dreaming for its power, its bravery, its beauty and its many accolades, and we’re absolutely delighted and very proud to welcome this truly extraordinary book, by a truly extraordinary writer, to Puffin.”

Woodson is based in Brooklyn, New York, and has written more than 30 award-winning books for young adults and children. She was the 2018-2019 US National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and received the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award.