Woodson reflects on her childhood in the south in the 1960’s and 70’s. The food, the family, the culture, the weather. Though she lives in a community where her family often lives in fear and faces degradation at the hands of those living in neighboring white neighborhoods, she learns to feel immense pride and strength in her identity, and finds a release in writing and literature. Woodson explores themes such as identity, faith, alcoholism, and trauma, in a way that is age appropriate but still challenging for elementary readers. This qualifies as inclusive literature in that it is a story both universal and historically specific- placed in a Black community in the south during the 60’s, told through the eyes of a young girl. Though this book specifies exactly who it is about and who it is for, Black girls, the trials and tribulations the narrator faces, as well as the deeply moving prose are impossible not to feel deep empathy for. To quote Lorraine Hansberry: “To create the universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific.”