KIN: Rooted in Hope

On Saturday, February 24, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m., in the Avalon Theatre, author Carole Boston Weatherford and her son, illustrator Jeffrey Boston Weatherford, will discuss their latest work, KIN: Rooted in Hope, a book The Bulletin of the Center for Children called “gorgeously rendered,” and one Kirkus Reviews described as “a striking work that reshapes the narrative around enslavement.”

Spanning more than 250 years of the Weatherford family’s Talbot County history, the author and illustrator conjure up the triumphs and losses of their ancestors through Carole Boston Weatherford’s poetry and her son Jeffrey’s astonishing scratch board illustrations. In addition to the voices of their ancestors, we hear from Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, an archaeologist, plantation owners and overseers, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Wye House itself.

Carole Boston Weatherford is the author of 70+ books. At the 2024 American Library Association Youth Media Awards, KIN: Rooted in Hope was named a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book. Her other works have earned her a Newberry Honor, the Coretta Scott King Award, four Caldecott Honors, two NAACP Image Awards, and nine American Library Association Youth Media Awards, among many others. Her 2021 book Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre was long-listed for the National Book Award. Weatherford’s poetry is simple, direct, and vivid. In Kin she resurrects forgotten lives.

An award-winning illustrator in his own right, Jeffrey Boston Weatherford was a Romare Bearden Scholar at Howard University, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree. A performance poet as well as an artist, Weatherford has exhibited or performed in West Africa and the Middle East, in addition to the U.S. His black and white scratch board art is striking, powerful, and exquisite. The book’s cover image will haunt the reader long after the book itself has been set aside.

The Weatherfords’ Avalon presentation is sponsored by the Talbot County Free Library, The Country School, The Avalon Foundation, and a group of community partners: Academy Art Museum, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Dorchester County Tourism, Easton Economic Development Corporation, Frederick Douglass Honor Society, Maryland Public Television, Monica Davis, ShoreRivers, Talbot Arts, Talbot County Economic Development and Tourism, Talbot County Public Schools, Talbot Historical Society, and WHCP FM 91.7 Music Discovery & NPR for the Mid-Shore, and Dock Street Foundation. The program is free and open to all. Reservations are not required. Books will be available for sale and signing. For more information, contact the library at 410-822-1626, go to www.tcfl.org, or the Avalon Theater.

On Friday, February 23, at 11:30 a.m., the Dorchester County Historical Society will be hosting a conversation with the Weatherfords on the power of genealogical research in leading them back to their roots. For more information about the program, contact the Historical Society at 410-228-7953 or go to dorchesterhistory.com.