It’s funny to think about identity. I wonder how much of us we inherit, and how much we create.

Connor’s grandmother leaves his dad a letter when she dies, and the letter’s confession shakes their tight-knit Italian American family: The man who raised Dad is not his birth father.

But the only clues to this birth father’s identity are a class ring and a pair of pilot’s wings. And so Connor takes it upon himself to investigate—a pursuit that becomes even more pressing when Dad is hospitalized after a stroke. What Connor discovers will lead him and his father to a new, richer understanding of race, identity, and each other.

In this eloquent first novel in verse by renowned poet Marilyn Nelson, she tells the story of a boy embracing his newfound genealogy and his surprising connection to American history.