by Carole Boston Weatherford

This beautiful, haunting verse novel tells the story of the author’s journey of discovering her ancestors. The author says she asked her ancestors to speak their experiences through her which is what these poems do. The reader is taken back in time through the history of a place that housed slaves and slavers. The building speaks. The ancestors speak through the generations. Some famous people of the day speak, including Frederick Douglas. The people who owned the house and all its horrible wealth speak. The dog speaks.  The key to the house speaks and the cemetery too.  It is a patchwork quilt of images through time and the imagined stories of what life would have been like from all these perspectives. The drawings throughout the book are line drawings or etchings, mostly white lines on black background. The detail is beautiful even when the images are sad or harsh. Students who want a story with a basic plot line may be confused because the timeline jumps around a bit. The multiple perspectives may challenge some readers. And it is a topic that is harsh and raw and often untold. It should be read.