Rockstar Tours: Kin (Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Boston Weatherford) Interview & Giveaway! ~US ONLY

I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the KIN by Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Boston Weatherford Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: KIN: Rooted in Hope

Author: Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Boston
Weatherford

Pub. Date: September 19, 2023

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 208

Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/KINROOTEDINHOPE 

 

A powerful portrait of a Black family
tree shaped by enslavement and freedom, rendered in searing poems by acclaimed
author Carole Boston Weatherford and stunning art by her son Jeffery Boston
Weatherford.

I call their names:
Abram Alice Amey Arianna Antiqua
I call their names:
Isaac Jake James Jenny Jim
Every last one, property of the Lloyds,
the state’s preeminent enslavers.
Every last one, with a mind of their own
and a story that ain’t yet been told.
Till now.

Carole and Jeffery Boston Weatherford’s ancestors are among the founders of
Maryland. Their family history there extends more than three hundred years, but
as with the genealogical searches of many African Americans with roots in
slavery, their family tree can only be traced back five generations before
going dark. And so from scraps of history, Carole and Jeffery have conjured the
voices of their kin, creating an often painful but ultimately empowering story
of who their people were in a breathtaking book that is at once deeply personal
yet all too universal.

Carole’s poems capture voices ranging from her ancestors to Frederick Douglass
to Harriet Tubman to the plantation house and land itself that connects them
all, and Jeffery’s evocative illustrations help carry the story from the first
mention of a forebear listed as property in a 1781 ledger to he and his
mother’s homegoing trip to Africa in 2016. Shaped by loss, erasure, and
ultimate reclamation, this is the story of not only Carole and Jeffery’s
family, but of countless other Black families in America.

 

Interview:

Q&A with Carole & Jeffery Boston Weatherford on KIN “Knowledge of one’s heritage is akin to generational wealth.”—C. B. Weatherford 

The award-winning mother-son/author-illustrator duo behind the genealogical saga, KIN:  ROOTED IN HOPE compare notes on the making of their genre-bending work of  poetry/nonfiction/historical fiction. In searing poems and stunning scratchboard art, mother  and son conjure the voices and visages of their enslaved ancestors and their contemporaries at  Maryland’s largest plantation. The Weatherfords trace their family’s roots to colonial America,  Civil War battlefields, all-Black Reconstruction-era villages and to local lore that they descend  from African royalty. 

Carole & Jeffery: Why was it important to tell this story?

Jeffery: This is our story of our own family’s roots. However, there are countless stories like this that  deserve to be told.

Carole: When the Civil War erupted, there were 4 million enslaved in the United States. Think of all the  Black stories, all the American stories, that remain untold. In writing this verse novel, I felt an obligation  to my ancestors and to my offspring to pass it on.

J: What was your research process?

Carole: Years before conceiving this book, I was absorbing my family’s saga. As a child, I learned that my  great-great grandfather Phillip Moaney, whose portrait hung on the farmhouse wall, had been enslaved.  I would later learn from a historical marker that my great-great grandfather, Isaac Copper served in the  U.S. Colored Troops. During Reconstruction, both ancestors cofounded all-Black villages—Unionville and

Copperville—on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Later, I read a passage from Frederick Douglass’s  autobiography which described another Isaac Copper. That mention prodded me determine whether a family tie existed. That research produced my great-great grandfather’s military papers. Once I decided  to write a verse novel I toured Wye House (which is a private home, note a museum) and the grove

where enslaved people are buried. I scoured the enslavers’ ledgers, receipts and prescriptions; slave  ship databases and captain’s logs; and studied material culture, archeology and the landscape.

C: What challenges did you face in creating the illustrations?

J: There weren’t many reference photos. That meant I had to imagine some elements. And, I had to use  models including family, friends and, for one illustration, myself. I also had to find references for the  landscape from various archives.

J: Why did you write in so many different voices in Kin?

C: In poetry, voice is key. Kin centers the once marginalized voices of Black people enslaved at Wye  House, Maryland’s largest enslavement plantation. In the manner of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River  Anthology, my characters share firsthand, albeit fictional, accounts. The Lloyds, my family’s enslavers,  also speak, as do Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, the Chesapeake Bay, a retriever, a mirror, and a  clock. By conjuring these voices I forged a deeper connection with my forebears.

C: What did you aim to achieve with the artwork?

J: I wanted to render high-contrast portraits and atmospheres and a dynamic sense of emotion while at  the same time evoking the past. My illustrations have the feel of vintage prints.

C: Describe the artistic medium?

J: Scratchboard is a subtractive technique in which artists use metal instruments known as nibs to  scratch the surface off the top of the scratchboard paper to reveal lightness underneath. Scratchboard is  a very meticulous design and execution process. One illustration may drawn up to three times before  the final illustration is scratched. That is also true of digital scratchboard which I used for the first time in  this book.

C: Do you have a favorite illustration?

J: My favorite is paired with the poem “The Rachel Speaks of Captain Richard Bruff.” My wife Bre’Anna  modeled for that illustration.

J: Do you have a favorite poem?

C: My favorites are the question poems that seek to pinpoint my ancestors’ African origin. I still long for  the answers.

C: When did you first become aware of our family’s history on the Eastern Shore?

J: My grandfather, who grew up there, showed me the one-room schoolhouse he attended which was  right across the road from our house. He also told me about Christmas celebrations when he was a boy  during the Great Depression. But he didn’t discuss slavery with me. How about you?

C: When I was a child my family would visit Copperville, the hamlet co-founded during the  Reconstruction by my great-great grandfather Phillip Moaney. His portrait hung on the wall in the  farmstead. I later learned that Phillip had been enslaved at Wye House—the same plantation as a young Frederick Douglass. As an adult, I learned about another great-great grandfather Isaac Copper, who co founded nearby Unionville with other veterans of the U.S. Colored Troops.

J: What discoveries surprised you most?

C: According to family lore, my great-great grandfather Isaac Copper, known locally as the Royal Black,  descended from African royalty.

 

 

About Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Boston
Weatherford Mother-Son/Author-Illustrator
Duo:

Hailed as “a master” and “the dean” of nonfiction for young
people,” Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King  Award winner Carole Boston
Weatherford is a New York Times best-seller and two-time NAACP Image
Award  winner. Since her 1995 debut, she has authored 70-plus books including
four Caldecott Honor winners: Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre; Freedom
in Congo Square, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: Spirit  of the Civil
Rights Movement, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to
Freedom. Her books have  won nine Coretta Scott King Awards or Honors.
She writes the diverse books that she lacked as a child. 

A Baltimore native and the daughter of educators, Carole was
virtually born with ink in her blood. At age six,  she dictated her first
poem to her mother. Her father, a high school printing teacher, published a few
of her  early poems on the press in his classroom. Meanwhile, her
grandmothers passed down oral traditions and  stories. By middle school,
Carole had transferred from an all-black public school to a majority-white,
private  school where a teacher wrongfully accused her of plagiarism. That
slight compelled her to chronicle a more  inclusive history, to amplify
marginalized voices and to build monuments with words. 

Now, children’s books are a family affair for Carole. In KIN:
Rooted in Hope, she and her son, award-winning  illustrator Jeffery
Weatherford embark on a genealogical quest. Through multi-voiced poems and
dramatic scratchboard illustrations, mother and son conjure the voices and
visages of their forebears. Their ancestors lived through the American
Revolution, fought in the Civil War, were enslaved alongside Frederick
Douglass,  cofounded Reconstruction-era villages, and according to local
lore, descended from African royalty.  

A professor at Fayetteville State University, an HBCU in
North Carolina, Carole has been recognized with the  Nonfiction Award from
the Children’s Book Guild, the North Carolina Literature Award, the
Ragan-Rubin  Award from North Carolina English Teachers Association and a
place in the North Carolina Literary Hall of  Fame. She is a life member
of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. 

Jeffery earned his M.F.A. from Howard University where he was
a Romare Bearden scholar and studied under  artists from the Black Arts
Movement. A rapper and a fine artist, Jeffery has performed or exhibited
in  Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Baltimore, North Carolina, West Africa and
the Middle East. Jeffery’s first book was  You Can Fly the Tuskegee
Airmen, and his first picture book was Call Me Miss Hamilton. Both
appeared on best  book of the year lists. 

Website: http://cbweatherford.com Email: [email protected]
 

Publicist: The Literary/Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati ([email protected]) 

Agent: Rubin Pfeffer Content

 

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Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a finished copy of KIN, US Only.

Ends September 19th, midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway