ParentsPick

Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel — Content Guide for Parents

By Jacqueline WoodsonDutton1995ISBN 9780452270985113 pages
Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel

Found in this book

  • ViolenceSupporting
  • Scary contentBrief
  • ReligionBriefChristian
  • Race & cultureSupporting
  • ProfanityBrief
  • Sexual contentCentral
  • Gender rolesBriefTraditional roles
  • Gender & orientationSupporting

Not found

  • Climate

Content themes

Factual summary of themes present in this book. No opinion — just the facts.

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Religion

PRESENT

Contains references to prayer and church attendance. A minister character plays a supporting role in two chapters.

About this book

Set in Brooklyn mostly during the Vietnam war, the story opens on a nameless black narrator, who's in the fifth grade, and her four siblings. Chapters come in small chunks broken off from the narrator's nerve-tossed heart. Her new baby brother, Cory, is half white. Her gay eldest brother, Troy, spends his last night home before going to Vietnam prancing around the kids' bedroom in his mother's high heels. Her third brother, Carlos, has blue eyes whose origin baffles him, and her mother falls into a bad mood and for a week saturates herself with a new Al Green record. Nearly every stage of the narrator's growth is a kind of death, though punctuated by falling in love and by traveling to Coney Island, Cape Cod and the Statue of Liberty. --

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel appropriate for a 7-year-old?

    The father drinks and beats the mother, and the family is torn apart by the Vietnam War, where the eldest brother dies. A review describes events with danger rumbling underneath, and readers call the book disturbing because of abuse, a violent father and a death in war.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have violence?

    Found (Supporting): The father drinks and beats the mother, and the family is torn apart by the Vietnam War, where the eldest brother dies.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have scary content?

    Found (Brief): A review describes events with danger rumbling underneath, and readers call the book disturbing because of abuse, a violent father and a death in war.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have religion?

    Found (Brief, Christian): In one scene a Catholic friend is horrified to realize she and the narrator are next to an altar.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have race & culture?

    Found (Supporting): The narrator is a Black girl growing up in Brooklyn, and her baby brother is half white, which prompts a remark from her father.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have profanity?

    Found (Brief): Common words listed from the book's text include strong swear words, and one slur against gay people.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have climate?

    Not found in the sources we checked.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have sexual content?

    Found (Central): Sexual abuse, the narrator's early sexual curiosity and the sexual behavior of those around her run through many chapters.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have gender roles?

    Found (Brief, Traditional roles): Troy goes to Vietnam to prove his manhood, and another brother is described as abusing women.

  • Does Autobiography of a Family Photo A Novel have gender & orientation?

    Found (Supporting): The narrator's eldest brother Troy is gay and appears in several scenes before he goes to Vietnam, and the narrator and a friend also straddle each other in a basement.