MG Review: Remember Us (Jacqueline Woodson)

Sage and her mother live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York in the 1970s, after the death of her father, a firefighter. Her mother works at the local high school, and is writing a book in her summer off. Sage likes the neighborhood, and is glad when Freddy moves in, since he also likes to play basketball. Freddy’s family has moved to the neighborhood because there have been a lot of fires in his old neighborhood, but there are a growing number of fires in Bushwick as well, leading the news media to dub it “the Matchbox”. Because of this, Sage’s mother is saving her money to buy a new, brick house in another location. The local children are rather interested in the fires, even though some have been burnt out of their homes. In addition to playing basketball, they frequently play in empty lots, using old mattresses as trampolines. Sage has a highly unpleasant encounter with an older boy in the neighborhood who questions “what kind of girl” she is, since she plays basketball and wears shorts, t shirts, and tennis shoes. He also takes her basketball, which was her father’s, and throws it where she can’t retrieve it. This rattles her more than she cares to admit, and the fires also prey on her thoughts. At one point, she sets items in the bathroom on fire, which alarms her mother and causes her to ground Sage. There are an increasing number of events of concern in the neighborhood, including the death of a young boy in a house fire and the hit and run death of dog that is then burned in the street, and Sage starts to realize that her mother is going to move them eventually, and she will not live in her beloved neighborhood or be close to Freddy anymore. She doesn’t try to fight it, and once the move happens, she is able to create a new life with herself, even gathering a group of girls from her new school who like to play basketball. She occasionally talks to Freddy, and she and her mother do go back to Bushwick to visit. It’s not the same, and as more and more houses burn (sometimes by landlords who wants the insurance money), Sage realizes that the Bushwick that she knew and loved will change, and that no one will remember that she was there.