Author Jacqueline Woodson is coming to Baltimore to talk about a football story at a rough time for this city’s football fans, but she’s not worried.
That’s because Woodson is a National Book Award-winner and MacArthur “Genius Grant” writer, and the people she’ll meet are some of the 11,000 seventh and eighth graders excited to discuss “Before the Ever After” — the novel-in-verse she wrote about 11-year-old ZJ and his dad, a professional football player.
This is all part of the One Book Baltimore initiative, a collaboration between the T. Rowe Price Foundation and Enoch Pratt Free Library to encourage reading and community dialogue. Since 2018, each year more than 11,000 seventh and eighth graders across 80 middle schools throughout Baltimore City Public Schools receive a copy of the same book. Enoch Pratt, community organizations, teachers, and others host discussions and related programs designed to promote conversations centered on the book, tying it to peace and positive change within the community.
In November, Woodson participated in the kick-off event for the program’s sixth year, attended by hundreds of Baltimore City Public School students, where she talked about her book. The story centers around ZJ, son of a talented and charming pro football player. ZJ’s dad begins to show signs of sustained head trauma from his years of playing football, and the family must adjust to new challenges and realities.
“It made me feel really good to see that One Book Baltimore had chosen ‘Before the Ever After.’ It’s a book that’s close to my heart,” Woodson said in a statement. “It’s a story every young person knows some part of – be it the friendship that gives ZJ strength, the mother that continues to love and nurture him through the crisis, the town that remains beautiful and constant no matter what happens, the music that allows for conversation, bonding, love. I hope every reader who comes to the book finds a part of themselves inside of it and feels seen.”
Her website’s biography tells the unusual story of how she combined her love of lying and writing to forge a path towards honing the art of storytelling. Encouraged by teachers and friends, she was always writing from the time she was a young child. Favorite authors of hers while she grew up included Mildred Taylor, Judy Blume, Jon Steptoe, and Hans Christian Andersen. She counts the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Medal among her many prestigious awards.
Woodson loves the enthusiasm young people show about reading. “Every school I went into the kids were just ready and eager about reading,” Woodson told Baltimore Fishbowl in a phone call. “I see how enthusiastic young people are about reading that … it makes me believe in it.”
Woodson credited the magic of Enoch Pratt Library, good and passionate teachers, and parents who are engaged with their children’s reading, with building that enthusiasm and engagement for the stories they read.
Noting that the story of football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is an old story, Woodson explains that “Before the Ever After” takes place in the 1990s, before the general public had the language for it.
“I mean, we know they had the language. They were just lying about it essentially to Black and brown folks,” Woodson said. “It is a narrative about not having the language in many ways. [ZJ and his family] didn’t know what was going on with his father while he was acting weird and slowly he begins to get diagnosed.”
Students and Woodson talk about these issues together, rather than her leading a discussion about the story itself. It isn’t only a conversation about CTE or football.
“I think the thing about literature when it’s doing its work, it opens lots of conversation,” Woodson said. “So, it’s not just the conversation of CTE. It’s the conversation of loss of memories, it’s a conversation of loss of friends, it’s the conversation of getting old, and having grandparents that are getting older, and how does that work in the trajectory of your own growing up?”
Echoing that sentiment, Dr. Sonja Brookins Santelises, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, spoke about the ways in which education transcends and reaches beyond the classroom and textbooks.
“Education is not confined to the pages of textbooks or the walls of classrooms; it’s a dynamic journey that extends far beyond the conventional. It’s about kindling a profound passion for learning and forging enduring connections within our community,” Santelises said in a statement. “One Book Baltimore, with its immersive exploration of Jacqueline Woodson’s ‘Before the Ever After,’ exemplifies the incredible tapestry of knowledge and togetherness that can be woven through literature.”
When Woodson comes to Baltimore, she will visit six schools in two days and hold a moderated conversation open to the public on Feb. 7 at 6 p.m. at Enoch Pratt Free Library. The library is located at 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD. To register for this event, click this link.
