Skin & BonesSkin & Bones

"Lena is getting married, even if it is at forty. She works tirelessly at a challenging job to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, feeling fortified by the legacy Black Portlanders left for her, while also burdened by what's been passed down generation after generation in her family: lessons and values about faith, love, beauty. Some of these lessons she wants to hold on to, but some she needs to unlearn. As she strives to evolve for her daughter, not wanting to make the same mistakes her mother made with her, a confession on her wedding day shifts her world. Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena questions everything she thought she knew about love, friendship, and parenting and finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love even as she struggles with it herself. Told in Renée Watson's poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration about who society makes room for, what gets passed down from one generation to the next, and a mother's resolve to teach her daughter how to take up space and shine her bold, brilliant light in a world that wants to dim it."--Book jacket.