Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Taylor, M. (1976). Roll of thunder, hear my cry. New York: Puffin Books.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is a novel about the Logan family living in Spokane County, Mississippi in 1933. The Logan family is an African American family lucky enough to have their own land that they live on and plant their cotton. The Logan’s are extremely fortunate; they own their own land in a time and place when many people both black and white were living as sharecroppers on various plantations throughout the south and racially motivated crimes were common occurrence. However, with cotton prices dropping, money tight with trying to pay the mortgage left on half the land and greedy Mr. Granger trying to get their land back in his possession constantly, in the winter months, Papa Logan, David, works on the railroad. Left at home is his mother, Big Ma, his wife, Mary, and their four children, Stacey, Cassie, Christopher-John and Little Man. The four children attend school where their mother is a teacher. AS the story progresses, you learn that the Logan’s are trying to get people to stop buying at the Wallace store in town. They let the young African American kids drink, smoke, run wild as well as charge outrageous interest to families that are sharecropping on the Granger land there trying to buy the things they need to survive. The Wallace’s, you come to find out throughout the course of the story, are responsible for several burnings, like the Berry’s, and even tarring and feathering a man. Simply because they are white, nothing happens and no lawful actions are taken against them, even though everyone knows they are responsible. The Logan’s are trying to get others in the town to boycott their store and do their shopping elsewhere. The Logan’s offer to families living around them to make trips to Vicksburg in order to get the supplies they need. They get somewhere around 30 families to sign on. In order to back the credit, Mr. Jamison, a white man who is on the Logan’s side, offers to back the credit needed for all those supplies in his name so that they Logan family doesn’t have to use their land for risk of losing it. Word catches around as to what the Logan family is planning and the Wallace’s are not happy. On a trip back from Vicksburg, they ambush the wagon, shooting at them. Also, the bank demands that the loan for the land be paid in full immediately and Mama gets fired from her job. With everything and everyone still piling against them, the Logan’s stick together as a family and do not back down. When a friend of the Logan children, T.J., gets into some serious trouble, everyone in the Logan family becomes in danger.

To find out what happens to the Logan family, read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Well, I feel like my summary does not even do the novel justice. What a detail packed and fantastic account of a community struggling with racial inequality in the south. It is simply phenomenal. I had never read this novel before and I was just on the edge of my seat every time I picked it up. I read the last half of the book in one sitting. Taylor, the author, does such a good job of keeping you on the edge of your seat and you never know what curve ball is going to be thrown at you next. There are so many characters and various angles, and everything is simply intertwined together perfectly. It is no wonder why this book won a Newberry Medal in 1977.  Our textbook characterized multicultural literature as books about people and the experiences they share either as a group or as individuals within a specific culture. This novel falls under the category of multicultural literature because the story centers on an African American family living in the south during a time of severe racial inequality.

Meg is the main character of the story and the protagonist. She is nine-year-old girl struggling with the world around her. The story is first person narrator, told from Meg’s point of view. You hear her thoughts, feelings, and emotions and as a reader you can truly connect with her as a character. Cassie is sassy, smart, and has a ton of confidence in herself. She is much like her Uncle Hammer, who is Papa’s brother that lives in Chicago, with a temper and quick to act. She often jumps into action without thinking or fully understanding the consequences of her actions. She is very family orientated and would go at great lengths to protect her family. When her little brother, Little Man, is about to get into trouble for an incident with a book, she interjects that she doesn’t want the book either; fully knowing she could get a whipping. Also, whenever there is some new drama unfolding at night, Cassie sneaks over into the boys’ room, knowing she is safe and comforted.  One of Cassie’s main flaws, however, is that she doesn’t understand the racial prejudices and attitudes of the people in the community around her. When in the general store in Strawberry, the owner starts and stops filling their order multiple times over the course of an hour, stopping to help white customers that walk in the door. She gets so mad and beside herself that she calls out the shop owner and causes a scene. They get kicked out of the store. When returning to the wagon, Cassie accidentally bumps into a young girl, Lillian Jean, who demands she apologize. Cassie tries to state it wasn’t on purpose but Lillian tells her to get on the ground. When she refuses, Lillian’s father comes and knocks her to the ground. Cassie does not understand that while she feels as if she is just as good as Lillian Jean or any of the other white kids, she is not equal to them at this time in society. That incident in Strawberry, Mama describes as one where Cassie had to grow up a little. As the story progresses throughout a year, Cassie does in fact grow up and start to realize the prejudices that she faces. Her character has to learn to deal with the life situations that she is faced with. When their friend T.J. is threatened with life on the chain gang after getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, she realizes that race does matter and it can sometimes be the difference between life and death in these times. While she is blessed with love, fairness, and equality on the land that her and her family live on, that is not the case in the outside world.

This would be a phenomenal text to read with young readers because of the story coming from the view point of this young girl, however, I would not recommend reading this book with a grade level younger than 5^th grade. Some of the incidents that happen in the book are graphic, like the tarring and feathering, the burning of the Berry’s, and the shooting. Also, racial segregation, inequality and the injustices that were occurring during this time are a tough subject to address with kids. While they need to be made aware, I think it may be difficult for younger readers to fully understand the gravity and severity of what was occurring during this time period. Kids would love this book for the relatability of the characters and the family as a whole: some person in the family will remind of someone in your own family. And the detail in which Taylor described them makes it easy to do. This would be an excellent novel to use in conjunction with studying American history from the early 1920’s and 1930’s in social studies. This is a realistic fiction story, with incidences like the ones occurring in the story happening all over the south during those times. There are so many occurrences in the book that happen that children would not believe really happened in real life. I thin kit would be neat to have kids track their thinking on post-its as they read and jot down their thoughts about what events are happening in the story. Then they could discuss those in groups or with partners and see how everyone’s feeling about the book were the same or different.

BIG Questions to use with students: Would you want to be friends with Cassie? Why or why not? Why do you think T.J. started running with the wrong crowd? Why is the land so important to the Logan’s? What do you think would have happened had the fire not been “started”? Do you think it was fair for Cassie to take her revenge on Lillian Jean? How do you think Jeremy feels about everything going on? Why do you think Papa brought Mr. Morrison to live with them? How would you feel if you were a Logan? Or a Wallace child? How might the story be different if it were told from the viewpoint of someone else?