One blood

Director of the eponymous Caldecott- and Newberry-honored imprint and a New York Times best-selling author of mostly YA titles, Millner beautifully limns the experiences of a woman who must give up her child, a mother who has adopted, and Black women everywhere who must negotiate the roles of wife and mother while entertaining their own dreams, all circumscribed by racism. Raised in Virginia by a midwife grandmother who still embraces the old ways, Grace is sent north to New York City after tragedy to live with a snippy aunt who denies her roots and has insinuated herself into the city's Black royalty. After bonding with a neighborhood boy who introduces her to the civil rights movement, Grace gets pregnant. Meanwhile, Lolo has fled her own tragedy for New York and has her own reasons to adopt. Thrumming with near-biblical cadence and enfolding a history of Black struggle, the narrative moves through Lolo's own struggles with marriage and motherhood (and her realization that "a simple loving act connected her not only to this little girl but also to her own mother"), finally bringing the novel to her adult daughter, Rae. VERDICT A bracing and important read with insights into adoption and motherhood, ending with the heartening words, "She wasn't afraid. She was doing her best. She was free."--Barbara Hoffert

What does it take to save your own life? Millner presents a searing chronicle of generations of Black women in the U.S. as they deal with forces, large and small, depriving them of freedom, dignity, and a sense of self-worth. Spanning the tumultuous years from 1965 to 2004, the stories of Grace, LoLo, and Rae--and their forebears and contemporary relatives--illustrate the battles fought for survival on the domestic front as other struggles played out on the streets and in the workplace. When Grace is cruelly stripped of the protection and guidance of her beloved grandmother, Maw Maw Rubelle, and sent to live with an unsympathetic aunt in Brooklyn, her country ways and spiritual beliefs cannot protect her from the social and class prejudices she encounters there. (The heartbreaking result of Grace's brief experience of happiness provides the thread binding the three women together.) LoLo, a victim of neglect and sexual violence in her early years, carries secrets and scars of her own. Determined to seek protection and stability in life, LoLo marries a seemingly "good" man and raises a family with him; she is especially determined to protect her daughter from the degradations she suffered at the hands of men and an unwelcoming greater society. Rae, one of LoLo's two adopted children, senses an emotional reserve in LoLo and is an eyewitness to her mother's misery in the face of suffocating social conventions and domestic drudgery. As the layers of secrets surrounding LoLo's and Rae's circumstances drop away, Millner explores the ways Black women searched out paths to survival for themselves and their families (often at tremendous personal cost). Echoes of determined earlier choices echo in the lives of subsequent generations in Millner's gripping saga. Strength and love flow through Millner's story. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.