Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Quame Alexander's new book,

The Door of No Return, is nominally a kid's book, but it's a kid's book that's dealing with some

really heavy stuff. It's about slavery, and of course, touches on all the violence associated

with the industry. And there's a part in this interview with NPR's Rachel Martin, where Alexander talks about

using his daughter as a North Star, as a guide to try and figure out how to talk about these

big issues to children without utterly destroying them, and how the solution he found was poetry.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods, NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You know our next guest well.

Kwame Alexander is Morning Edition's poet in residence.

Kwame has written a new book, a young adult novel that is filled with hope, resilience,

anger, and love. It's called The Door of No Return. And it's about a young boy named Kofi

growing up in Ghana in the year 1860. Kwame told me this book was the hardest that he's ever

written. And what helped frame the story was an unexpected connection that he made.

I remember having this revelation that I think the blues, that music, comes from Africans, from black people's,

sort of understanding and relationship to the water, and how it has been, you know, tragic and triumphant for us.

And so I wanted to write a story about the beauty and the joy and my love of the water.

And so I chose this boy, Kofi, who's 11 years old, who's a swimmer in 1860, and he loves the water.

And I wanted to show that sort of his journey in the water

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