“My family is big, complicated, and beautiful - and keeps me smiling and whole. It's so important to have family, whether it's biological family, good friends, foster families, or a group of aunties who are raising you. The idea of feeling isolated is scary to me - to walk through the world alone would be heartbreaking.”

American writer of children's and young adult books

Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and young adults. She is best known for Miracle's Boys and for titles including Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. Her work has been recognized with a Newbery Honor, and Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She served as Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, then became the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for 2018 to 2019. She also received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018, the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2020, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.