Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Weatherford, author-illustrator, mother-son duo behind children's and young adult books: diverse, anti-racist nonfiction, biographies, poetry, historical fiction on African American heritage, culture, social justice. STEAM programs for K-12 and all ages.
I feel so honored that three of my 2023 titles made the Best of the Best list compiled by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Congratulations to illustrators Ashley Evans, Frank Morrison and E. B. Lewis, and to all the other creators whose amazing books were recognized. Thank you, BCALA!
Download the teachers’ guide for How Do You Spell Unfair?here.
Last week, I was honored to participate in the SLJ webcast, “Fact-Finding and Black History,” a panel discussion with Amina Luqman-Dawson, Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome, moderated by Marva Hinton. As we discussed how to navigate the challenges of researching Black history, I cited the term, “critical fabulation,” which was coined by MacArthur Fellow Saidiya Hartman, a cultural historian and Columbia University professor. I became acquainted with the term and with Hartman’s scholarship through her award-winning book, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Gilrs, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals (2019). Critical fabulation uses storytelling and speculative narration to right history’s omissions, particularly of enslaved people.
My deepest dive into critical fabulation, however, was for the verse novel, KIN: Rooted in Hope, a collaboration with my son, illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford. In this family history, we conjure the voices, visages and vistas of our enslaved and newly emancipated ancestors and their contemporaries. As I was writing KIN, I stumbled upon Hartman’s Wayward Lives. Her explanation and application of critical fabulation freed me to reclaim my ancestor’s lost narratives. For that, I am grateful.
For the first time ever, I attended the American Library Association Youth Media Awards in person. What a thrill to have not one but two books honored. KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, illustrated by my son Jeffery Boston Weatherford, and HOW DO YOU SPELL UNFAIR? MACNOLIA COX AND THE NATIONAL SPELLING BEE, illustrated by my frequent collaborator Frank Morrison, both won Coretta Scott King Award Author Honors. Thanks to the CSK Award Committee for all the love. And congratulations to all the CSK Award and YMA winners.
There were two proud mamas–me and my 98-year-old mother–at the fabulous Reginald F. Lewis Museum book launch and pop-up exhibition for KIN: Rooted in Hope. That event, sponsored by the Roberts Family Foundation, capped our KIN book tour.
In other news, the KIN book tour last fall took us to Baltimore, Salt Lake City, New York, New Orleans and Washington, DC. Not even a library evacuation (bomb scare?) or hurricane could dampen our enthusiasm for sharing KIN, our family’s history, with readers and educators. Thanks to Sankofa Books, King’s English Bookshop, Baldwin & Co. and Books of Wonder for hosting launch events. Our kidlit friends Leah Henderson and Rita Williams-Garcia moderated discussions.
We are excited to be taking KIN home to Easton, Maryland, the verse novel’s setting, on February 23 and 24.
We have several Black History Month appearances planned for Baltimore, Washington, Northern Virginia and Philadelphia. If you are in the DMV or Philly and want to save on travel expenses, we still have openings. Reach out for dates and details.
This leap year adds a day to Black History Month. Rather than cramming Black studies into one short month, use Dawnavyn James’s recent book, BEYOND FEBRUARY: Teaching Black History Any Day, Every Day, and All Year Long, K-3. This instructive guide offers great ideas for using African-American children’s books–including my books, Moses and Unspeakable–in the classroom.
For more on how to approach Black studies, check out Dr. LaGarrett King’s brilliant Teaching Black History Framework. And, download the free annotated bibliography, Black History Books, which compiles links and lesson ideas for books by the Weatherfords.
We have several books forthcoming in 2024. The first quarter will see the release of BROS, a poetic picture book celebrating of Black Boy Joy. The book, illustrated by Reggie Brown, is a Junior Library Guild selection. Pre-order BROS now.
When I share books about enslavement with students, some state that they would have revolted or escaped if enslaved. Those options were not the only acts of resistance waged by enslaved people.
In my verse novel, KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, illustrated by my son Jeffery Boston Weatherford, we trace our lineage from colonial America to the all-Black, Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville that our forebears cofounded. This poem imagines how my ancestor, Prissy Copper, might have resisted while a house servant at Maryland’s Wye House plantation.
Art by Jeffery Boston Weatherford from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE.
October is Family History Month, and true to form, I’m posting one day before it ends. My new verse novel, KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, is truly a family affair–a family history created by me and my son, illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford. The book spans four generations, extending from colonial America to the Jim Crow era. The action is set on Maryland’s largest enslavement plantation and in the all-Black Reconstruction era villages founded by our ancestors.
While my poems conjure ancestral voices and recreate lost narratives, Jeffery’s stunning scratchboard illustrations bring our ancestors, and the adversity they overcame, out of obscurity and life. From plantation ledgers, military records, material culture and the landscape, I learned so much about my forebears, their contemporaries and their milieu. With help from cousins who had done much of the genealogy, I traced my earliest known ancestors, Isaac and Nan Copper, to 1770. Hard as I tried, though, I could not find their/my African origins. When facts proved elusive, I took creative license. Engaging in what scholar Saidiya Hartman terms “critical fabulation,” I pushed past the archive and discovered more than I ever imagined. Here are my key takeaways.
Family is an enduring source of strength.
Names, dates and places form the branches of a family tree. Stories are the leaves.
Reclaiming history is generational wealth. Pass it on!
KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, my latest collaboration with award-winning illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford, launches Thursday, October 19, 6-9 PM at the Reginald Lewis Museum at 830 East Pratt Street in Baltimore. In KIN, our family’s history unfolds through my poems and my son’s art. The book discussion moderated by Dr. Leslie King Hammond will begin at 7 PM. There will also be a pop-up exhibition of Jeffery’s digital scratchboard art from the book. Register here. The first 125 registrants will receive a free copy of the book. Jeffery and I hope to see you there.
FAMILY TREES, ROYAL ROOTS, SCHOOL VISITS & FREE GUIDES
Why so sad?I just found out that Carole is not my mother.
How far back can you trace your roots? In KIN: Rooted in Hope, my son Jeffery and I reach back to 1770 at Maryland’s largest plantation and to the Reconstruction-era villages our ancestors co-founded. Dramatic poems and scratchboard art conjure our enslaved forebears, reclaiming lost narratives and a royal legacy.
Our new presentation based on KIN shares primary sources, poems, illustrations and the book’s backstory. We are now booking school and library visits for KIN and for K-12 programs about the Tuskegee Airmen, Tulsa Race Massacre, segregation/civil rights, jazz/the Harlem Renaissance/Great Depression, poetry and your choice of biographies. And we’re still celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop.
In case you missed these TEACHER GUIDES for recent and award-winning titles.
During the 1960s, my mother and I often visited the Baltimore Museum of Art. The museum’s crown jewel is the Cone Collection of impressionist art, which featured Edgar Degas’ sculpture, “Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen.” As a girl, that piece resonated with me because I too had taken ballet lessons and because I could almost look the youthful subject eye to eye.
Last month after viewing The Culture, the dopest exhibition ever of hip-hop-inspired art and artifacts, I strolled past the “Little Dancer” for old-time’s sake. I could not have been more shocked by what I saw. Standing across from “Little Dancer” is “Meredith,” Simone Leigh’s towering stoneware and steel counterpart to Degas’ sculpture. Adorned in a rafia skirt, Meredith is clearly of African descent.
After all those years of admiring “Little Dancer,” I was finally seeing myself in Meredith. She spoke not only to the Black girl I once was but to the Black woman I have become. Teary-eyed, I realized once again how much representation matters–for children and for adults.
My son Jeffery and I were recently interviewed by Preservation Maryland President Nicholas Redding on PreserveCast. We discuss our latest collaboration KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, an illustrated verse novel chronicling our genealogical quest to conjure our ancestors’ voices and visages. The book is set in Talbot County, Maryland, at Wye House, once the state’s largest enslavement plantation, and in the Black, Reconstruction-era villages of Unionville and Copperville, which our ancestors cofounded. KIN releases September 19, 2023. Pre-order here.
Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Weatherford, author-illustrator, mother-son duo behind children's and young adult books: diverse, anti-racist nonfiction, biographies, poetry, historical fiction on African American heritage, culture, social justice. STEAM programs for K-12 and all ages.
