The Weatherford Report: Fall 2023 e-newsletter

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.

Standing in the Need of Prayer: A Modern Retelling of the Classic Spiritual

How Do You Spell Unfair? MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee

Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre

The Faith of Elijah Cummings: The North Star for Equal Justice

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul

To bring us to your school or community, contact cbwpoet@gmail.com.

Pass history on!

Carole and Jeffery

The Weatherford talk KIN on PreserveCast

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.

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New ebook for the youngest readers

Just in time for Black History Month. AFRICA, my new ebook, celebrates the Motherland through poetry and photos. For children ages 0-6. The book is the debut release from Great Brain Entertainment, a venture by fine artist and digital designer Jeffery Weatherford (my son). More on that later… Available on amazon.com and bn.com