This is my second Woodson book, and I can't quite put my finger on what I've liked about both of them. The writing is not the best I've encountered, but there is something so honest and unpretentious about the characters and their situations that I can't help but engage with them. As a white woman, I also feel I'm getting a tiny vicarious glimpse into what it means to grow up black in this country.

This book goes back and forward in time, and traces the history of three generations as they move from Tulsa to Chicago to Brooklyn. They face lots of challenges in their lives, but manage to keep moving on with hope. The story is maudlin at times, but the maudlin works. There is a sense of family as a kind of living being, moving down through the years, both nourishing and confounding its members, and there is something deeply comforting in that I think.