The Year We Learned to Fly

Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López's highly anticipated companion to their #1 New York Times bestseller The Day You Begin illuminates the power in each of us to face challenges with confidence.

On a dreary, stuck-inside kind of day, a brother and sister heed their grandmother's advice: "Use those beautiful and brilliant minds of yours. Lift your arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe in a thing. Somebody somewhere at some point was just as bored you are now." And before they know it, their imaginations lift them up and out of their boredom. Then, on a day full of quarrels, it's time for a trip outside their minds again, and they are able to leave their anger behind. This precious skill, their grandmother tells them, harkens back to the days long before they were born, when their ancestors showed the world the strength and resilience of their beautiful and brilliant minds. Jacqueline Woodson's lyrical text and Rafael Lopez's dazzling art celebrate the extraordinary ability to lift ourselves up and imagine a better world.

Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Published: 01/04/2022
Pages: 32
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 10.60h x 9.30w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9780399545535
Audience: Ages 4-8

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 3.9
Point Value: 0.5
Interest Level: Lower Grade
Quiz #/Name: 514382 / Year We Learned to Fly


Award: Kirkus Prize - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/15/2021
Booklist 12/01/2021 pg. 58
Horn Book Magazine 01/01/2022 pg. 103
Shelf Awareness 01/18/2022
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 01/01/2022
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2022
School Library Journal 02/04/2022 pg. 1
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2022 - Superior,Well Above Average

About the Author
Jacqueline Woodson (jacquelinewoodson.com) received a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award, and was the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award. Her books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner Before the Ever After, New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me, Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster, and Each Kindness, which won the Jane Addams Children's Book Award.

Rafael López (rafaellopez-books.com) illustrated New York Times bestseller Just Ask! (by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor). He won Pura Belpré medals for Drum Dream Girl and Book Fiesta, and has also received three Pura Belpré honors, two Américas Book Awards, and the 2017 Tomás Rivera Children's Book Award and Society of Illustrators Original Art Silver Medal. His work has been featured in Communication Arts, American Illustration Annual, Graphic Design USA and Huffington Post. He's a founder of San Diego's Urban Art Trail movement, created seven US Postal Stamps, and created official posters for the '08 and '12 Obama-Biden campaigns.