American Ace: The Pilot's Wings Hold a Secret Family History

This riveting novel in verse, perfect for fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Toni Morrison, explores American history and race through the eyes of a teenage boy embracing his newfound identity
 
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.
From the Hardcover edition.

Marilyn Nelson is a three-time National Book Award finalist, has won a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and several Coretta Scott King Honors, and has received several prestigious poetry awards, including the Poets' Prize and the Robert Frost Medal "for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry." Her most recent book, How I Discovered Poetry, was named a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book and an ALA Notable Children’s Book.
From the Hardcover edition.