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Weatherford, Carole Boston

Kin: Rooted in Hope

208 pp. | Atheneum | September, 2023 | Trade ISBN 9781665913621 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 9781665913645 $10.99
(1) 4-6 Illustrated by Jeffery Boston Weatherford. From a single photograph and sparse information to a fully realized lineage of excellence, an African American author, with dramatic illustrations by her son, traces their family's roots. Carole Boston Weatherford (Standing in the Need of Prayer, rev. 9/22) deftly weaves a myriad of locations, entities, and mindsets into her imaginative and moving chronicle. Personification poems introduce various locations she visited, such as the Chesapeake Bay ("Surely as I spill into the Atlantic, the current / of greed swept me into the triangular trade") and Wye House plantation in Maryland ("I witness more cruelty than I care to recall / the sin of slavery haunts my every hall"). Most powerful are the poems that give her ancestors a voice. From brief mentions in enslavers' ledgers and other historical documents, Weatherford gives life to kin such as "Nanny / Nancy / Nan Copper, House Servant (born c. 1763)" and Isaac Copper, an elder who taught younger enslaved people Bible verses--among them, Frederick Douglass. Jeffery Boston Weatherford's (illustrator of Call Me Miss Hamilton, rev. 3/22) scratchboard and digital black-and-white renderings match the poems' intensity, with the compositions' points of view being as dynamic and varied as the styles of verse. Fans of Bryan's Freedom over Me (rev. 11/16) and Nelson's Heart and Soul (rev. 11/11) will appreciate this extensively researched and deeply felt genealogical exploration. Appended with an author's note, an illustrator's note (unseen), and a comprehensive bibliography.
Reviewer: Eboni Njoku | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023

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