A Girl Named Jack PDF

# A Girl Named Jack By Jacqueline Woodson Good enough name for me, my father said the day I was born. Don't see why she can't have it, too. But the women said no. My mother first. Then each aunt, pulling my pink blanket back, patting the crop of thick curls, tugging at my new toes, touching my ch...

# A Girl Named Jack By Jacqueline Woodson Good enough name for me, my father said the day I was born. Don't see why she can't have it, too. But the women said no. My mother first. Then each aunt, pulling my pink blanket back, patting the crop of thick curls, tugging at my new toes, touching my cheeks. We won't have a girl named Jack, my mother said. And my father's sisters whispered, A boy named Jack was bad enough. But only so my mother could hear. Name a girl Jack, my father said, and she can't help but grow up strong. Raise her right, my father said, and she'll make that name her own. Name a girl Jack, and people will look at her twice, my father said. For no good reason but to ask if her parents were crazy, my mother said. And back and forth it went until I was Jackie, and my father left the hospital mad. My mother said to my aunts, Hand me that pen, wrote Jacqueline where it asked for a name. Jacqueline, just in case someone thought to drop the ie. Jacqueline, just in case, I grew up and wanted something a little bit longer and further away from Jack. Jacqueline Woodson, "a girl named jack" from Brown Girl Dreaming. Copyright © 2014 by Jacqueline Woodson. Used by permission of Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Source: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014