RAP IT UP! is our first co-authored title. Illustrated by mural artist Ernel Martinez, the how-to book covers literary devices, poetic elements and performance tips to build kids’ writing skills and enhance their confidence as public speakers. The book drops on March 18, and we can hardly wait. Please join us that evening at Oxon Hill Public Library, 6200 Oxon Hill Road, in PG County. Jeffery will be rapping, of course! We hope to see you there.
Jeffery and I are so grateful that our ancestors reclaimed narratives will be amplified through KIN’s selection as the 2025 One Maryland One Book. We can almost feel our ancestors smiling down on us. Stay tuned for details of related activities. Thank you, Maryland Humanities.
Leading up to the American Library Association Youth Media Awards, I was of course pulling for my books. Perhaps Outspoken: Paul Robeson, Ahead of His Time-A One-Man Show or Whriligigs: The Wondrous Windmills of Vollis Simpson’s Imagination would get a Sibert nod, or Crown of Stories: The Life and Language of Beloved Writer Toni Morrison would be recognized by the Coretta Scott King Award committee, or Crowning Glory: A Celebration of Black Hair would clinch another Caldecott for illustrator Ekua Holmes. It’s a good thing that I am not a betting woman because I was dead wrong.
I never dreamed that it would be me, not my 2024 books, being honored this year. When I got the call from the award committee of the Association for Library Service to Children, I was in shock. The biggest thrill, though, was hearing the applause when my name was called during the award announcement at ALA Lib/Learn X in Denver.
After streaming the announcements, I looked heavenward and whispered, “Mommy and Daddy, I did it.” Their spirits will be with me when I accept the award this summer in Philadelphia.
The recent passing of Nikki Giovanni reminded me of the first poetry book that I ever bought. Edited by Dudley Randall and published by his Detroit-based Broadside Press, the slim volume BLACK POETRY was released in 1969, the year I turned 13 and began wearing an Afro. The anthology collects works by Harlem Renaissance poets such as jean Toomer, Claude McKay and Langston Hughes and voices from Black Arts Movement, including Giovanni, Etheridge Knight, Sonia Sanchez, Clarence Major, Amira Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) and Haki Madhubuti (then known as Don Lee).
I bought the book during a lunch break from my part-time job at one of Baltimore’s downtown department stores. After a hamburger or kosher hot dog at the Earl of Sandwich, I’d usually head to either the Enoch Pratt Central Library or Sherman’s Bookstore and Newstand. There, I bought Black Panther newspapers, a haiku anthology, Pablo Neruda’s The Captain’s Verses and BLACK POETRY.
While in college and soon after, I attended poetry readings by Giovanni, Sanchez and Madhubuti. And, I was awed by the Ntozake Shange’s innovative play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide (When the Rainbow is Enough). Shange’s so-called choreopoem showed me that poetry belongs not only on the page but also onstage. Poets of the Black Arts Movement showed me that poetry could be political and validated my own emerging voice.
As a budding author, I sometimes encountered Nikki Giovanni at literary events where attendees mistook me for her. I could not have been more flattered. With pride and gratitude, I dedicate my term as the Poetry Foundation’s Young People’s Poet Laureate to the poets of the Black Arts Movement who inspired a younger me.
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.
Jeffery and I celebrated Women’s History Month at Nashville’s Public Library and KIPP Middle School with presentations spotlighting little-known (s)heroes in collaboration Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman’s Fight for Equality and Respect and in How Do You Spell Unfair? Macnolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee, illustrated by Frank Morrison.
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.
Finally, National Poetry Month calls for a one-poem project. May we suggest “Daniel Lloyd,” “Chicken Sue” or “Prissy” from KIN; “Head to the Sky” from You Can Fly: The Tuskegee Airmen, “Fifth Grade” from Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library or the opening poem from Outspoken? Pluck a few six-line poems from BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom. Or choose a poetic picture book like Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, Freedom in Congo Square, You are My Pride: A Love Letter from Your Motherland, Be a King: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Dream and You or The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop.
The picture book bios Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America and How Do You Spell Unfair? Macnolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee are also good fits for one-poem projects. You could even share those titles in May around the National Spelling Bee or National Photography Month. Can you say C-H-E-E-S-E?
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.
