West Hartford Reads! Book Discussion: Before the Ever After (NWL)

Grades 5-7

Join us for a West Hartford Reads! book discussion, featuring Jacqueline Woodson's book Before the Ever After. You will receive a copy of the book prior to the start of the book clubs. Each participant will also receive a “goodie bag” of story-related items! Please register.

About the Book

ZJ’s Dad has been everybody’s football hero but is now moody and forgetting things.  ZJ is scared and has lots of questions. His strong group of friends are working hard to get him through this. This powerful novel, told in verse,  celebrates our ability to adapt and go bravely forth when trouble arrives.

About the Author

Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for adults, children, and adolescents. She is best known for her National Book Award-Winning memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. Her picture books The Day You Begin and The Year We Learned to Fly were NY Times Bestsellers. After serving as the Young People’s Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2018–19. She was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2020. Later that same year, she was named a MacArthur Fellow. She will be joining us on Thursday, October 17 at Sedgwick Middle School for an author talk and book signing.