Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson is the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. The Day You Begin was inspired by a poem in her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which also received a Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, an NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She is a four-time National Book Award finalist, a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, and the recipient of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award and the Margaret E. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.

From the dust jacket of The Day You Being