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.
That’s what one young rhymer said after Jeffery’s HIP HOP TECH workshop at the Portsmouth Public Library in Virginia. Next year, we’re turning it up even more with a new picture book, RAP IT UP! Inspired by his popular workshops, Jeffery conceived this how-to book and co-authors with me. Philly muralist Ernel Martinez illustratres. The rhyming text drops knowledge about writing and public speaking. Peek inside and pre-order here.
Young rhymers can’t get their hand on the book yet, but they can grab a mic at Jeffery’s hip hop workshops this summer. Since 2015, libraries, museums and youth agencies have hosted single sessions and residencies. Empowered by their own words, youth gain greater self-awareness and self-confidence.from writing and performing. Contact Carole for more info: cbwpoet@gmail.com.
With 80 books, there’s a title for (almost) every season and observance, including Photography Month (May), Memorial Day, Black Music Month (June) and Juneteenth. Add to that books, activities and presentations for summer reading programs and Vacation Bible School (VBS!). It’s not too late to book the Weatherfords for late spring and summer.
For Photography Month, Jeffery and I focus on Gordon Parks and Dorothea Lange and how primary source photographs figure into our historical research.
KICK-OFF SUMMER WITH A SALUTE & SONG
For Memorial Day, we honor military heroes with poems from YOU CAN FLY; THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN and from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE and a rousing rap from Jeffery saluting the pioneering Black WWII pilots.
On May 31 or June 1, I hope you will pause to remember Black Wall Street, the nation’s wealthiest Black business district, once located in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Greenwood community, which, in 1921, was the scene of the nation’s worst incident of racial violence. UNSPEAKABLE: THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE, my 2021 collaboration with the late Floyd Cooper, tells that story.
For the Juneteenth national holiday, Jeffery and I share stories of enslavement and emancipation from KIN: ROOTED IN HOPE, MOSES: WHEN HARRIET TUBMAN LED HER PEOPLE TO FREEDOM and JUNETEENTH JAMBOREE, the first children’s book about the first African-American holiday.
This summer Jeffery will again offer his popular Hip Hop Tech workshop, now known as RAP IT UP!–after our upcoming picture book collaboration. These transformative sessions get tweens and teens hyped about writing and performing original rap lyrics. A Petersburg, Virginia, workshop produced what has got to be thee dopest testimonial: “I can’t believe they let us get lit like that in the library! Believe it. Jeffery is already booked for a residency in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
For Black Music Month, Jeffery and I tune in to African-American musical genres and musicians–from spirituals, blues, and gospel, to jazz, soul and rap. Yes, we got books for all that.
TAKING IT TO CHURCH!
With book bans proliferating and Black history under attack, grassroots reading/study groups are needed more than ever. We encourage churches to host reading programs for all ages, but especially for children. Many of our titles are perfect for Vacation Bible School and for multigenerational audiences and discussions. Reading guides for many of these books are available as free downloads (more on that later). If your church literacy initiative uses our books, let us know. We may be available to join the discussion via Zoom. Here are some spirit-filled books to consider.
Group shots clockwise from top left: Jeffery and Carole greet family and friends after the KIN event in Easton, Maryland; BROS Day, a celebration hosted by the Chicago-based pop-up play space, Brown Books and Paintbrushes; at the Harriet Tubman Museum in Cambridge, Maryland; a student reading How Do You Spell Unfair? as part of the Dublin, California, One City/One Book project. The new picture book bios, Crown of Stories and Outspoken, release in April.
During Black History Month, Jeffery Boston Weatherford–my son and collaborator–and I took KIN: Rooted in Hope home to Talbot County, Maryland, where our newly freed forebears co-founded Reconstruction-era villages. Big hugs to librarian and event organizer Cindy Orban (top center in purple)–the best friend a book ever had. Thanks to the event sponsors, including Talbot County Free Library, The Country School, Avalon Theatre and Dorchester County Tourism Office. By the way, there’s now a KIN reading guide to accompany the Family Tree Activity sheet.
While in Easton, Maryland, we made what I am told was the largest donation statewide to the inaugural Maryland Commission on African American History & Culture Book Drive: board books–My Favorite Toy and Mighty Menfolk–for Talbot County’s toddlers.
Francis Scott Key by Jeffery Boston Weatherford from KIN (Atheneum).
Jeffery’s solo exhibition of prints from KIN—April 7 and through June at Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Museum–will include the above portrait of Francis Scott Key. During the War of 1812, Key penned the Star Spangled Banner as bombs burst over Baltimore’s harbor. That same harbor made headlines recently when a 200-million-ton freighter slammed the Frances Scott Key Bridge, causing its collapse, six deaths and thousands of lost jobs. I pray for the families of the road crew who were killed. I pray that my hometown can bear this blow and that rebuilding will be swift. #MarylandTough #BaltimoreStrong
There’s still time to book us–the Weatherfords–for a school visit this spring. We also offer Juneteenth celebrations and summer programs, such as Jeffery’s popular Rap It Up hip-hop writing workshop for ages 10 to adult. And it’s not too early to book us for next school year.
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.
children's books by the weatherfords 