Charleston, West Virginia, in 1905, this novel builds a story around real-life antique photos collected by Bolden. After the great-aunt who raised her dies, 12-year-old Delana takes to heart a comment by another great-aunt (“meek ain’t weak”) and works to find the truth behind the stories she’s been told about her family. Delana’s grandfather saw his father hung and family sold apart; bought his own freedom; and became a successful businessman determined to preserve his future family and legacy. In the years after emancipation, he managed to make contact with lost relatives, who were successful in their own ways. When Delana’s mother died in childbirth, he and his sister raised the baby to be a good but sheltered girl. However, no one can keep children and grandchildren cocooned forever, and a wayward aunt reveals a secret: the father that Delana has never known is still alive. This moving, first-person narrative is told in the convincing voice of an educated child using the language of the time. The black-and-white portrait photographs bring life to the richly imagined historical details and characters, and readers will sympathize with the grandfather as well as Delana, who takes her first steps out of her privileged but constricted world by going downtown on her own to have her picture taken. Much more than just a tale of finding oneself or one’s family, this novel is a powerful, unique, and satisfying story of African American lives.