Coretta Scott King Award winner and National Book Award finalist Carole Boston Weatherford (Unspeakable) teams up once again with illustrator son Jeffery Boston Weatherford (You Can Fly) to explore their shared past and honor their enslaved ancestors through dignified poems and stunning artwork in Kin: Rooted in Hope.
Mother and son begin their narrative in 2016 at the Door of No Return, a trading post on Gorée, an island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, where "captive Africans/ were held for weeks, months,/ until their numbers could fill/ a ship's belly." Next, they travel to the Wye House Plantation in Easton, Md., where their ancestors were enslaved by the Lloyd family. Carole Boston Weatherford's narrative follows both chronological history and the mother/son's trip to uncover the painful past. Her poems use historical records that showcase the diverse voices of her ancestors, as well as those of the enslaving family, and even first-person points of view for ships, Chesapeake Bay, and the Wye House itself.
Weatherford's rhythmic and artistic narrative, inspired by Alex Haley's Roots, brings to life her ancestors, the places they lived, and their oppression. Additionally, her personification of places that "witnessed" generations of enslavement gives readers an unexpected viewpoint. Jeffery Boston Weatherford accompanies his mother's poems with expressive black-and-white scratchwork illustrations that add further weight, humanity, and grandeur to the history. For many Black families, the process of tracing their ancestry is difficult because of the enslavement of their ancestors; here, the Weatherfords invite readers who may feel lost and erased to share in their own history. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer