roll of thunder

Mildred Delois Taylor is a critically acclaimed author of children's novels. Most of her works, which are based on her own family history, revolve around the close-knit Logan family, an African American family that rises above the indignities of racism through courage and love. In 1977, Taylor won the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children's literature, for her historical novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Since 1977, Taylor's fiction continued to portray the effects of racism counterbalanced with courage and love. In doing so, her fiction defied the "political correctness" of the 1990s.
Taylor was born at home on September 13, 1943 in Jackson, Mississippi, where she joined her older sister Wilma. Their paternal great-grandfather, the son of a white Alabama plantation owner and a slave woman, had become a successful farmer in Mississippi. His large extended family thrived despite the racism they encountered. Yet Taylor's parents, Wilbert and Deletha, wanted their daug...