Tag: genealogy

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WEATHERFORD REPORT: TWO CSK Award Honors, Black History Month (and beyond), School Visits & BROS

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.

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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.

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Reclaiming History Is Generational Wealth

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.

  1. Family is an enduring source of strength.
  2. Names, dates and places form the branches of a family tree. Stories are the leaves.
  3. Reclaiming history is generational wealth. Pass it on!

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FREE BOOK IN BALTIMORE: First 125 Registrants Get KIN

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.