ACHUKA Book of the Day 22 Jul 2026
PUBLISHED FIFTY YEARS AGO
“Taylor trusts to her material and doesn’t try to inflate Cassie’s role in these events, and though the strong, clear-headed Logan family is no doubt an idealization, their characters are drawn with quiet affection and their actions tempered with a keen sense of human fallibility.” KIRKUS
The classic story of a girl growing up in the deep South. Set in Mississippi at the height of the American Depression, this is the story of a family’s struggle to maintain their integrity, pride and independence against the forces of a cruelly racist society.
‘We have no choice of what colour we’re born or who our parents are or whether we’re rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re here.’
The Mississippi of the 1930s was a hard place for a black child to grow up in, but still Cassie didn’t understand why farming his own land meant so much to her father. During that year, though, when the night riders were carrying hatred and destruction among her people, she learned about the great differences that divided them, and when it was worth fighting for a principle even if it brought terrible hardships.
Winner of the highly prestigious John Newbery Medal in the USA in 1977, the year after it was first published. The book, part of Taylor’s Logan family series, IS a sequel to her 1975 novella Song of the Trees.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I felt seen as a lil country Black girl https://t.co/8ZczWBAsEF
— 🌊N A J A Y A (@najornajaya) July 14, 2026
Been radical since I read Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry as a child. https://t.co/kDrTjc2GX0
— the HBIC ✨ (@oohlalathehbic) June 27, 2026
And as astonishing a writer as Harper Lee was, I am still always urging young people to read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry for a much richer perspective of that same time period.
— Rhonda Nagler (@nagler_rhonda) February 25, 2026
I have just read Mildred D. Taylor’s ‘Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry’ (1976) for the first time. A YA novel based on her own family history. I felt nothing but an unrelenting tension throughout, like a storm waiting to break…and then of course, it did. Unforgettable. pic.twitter.com/i8MBvHiTUJ
— Mathew Tobin (@Mat_at_Brookes) October 23, 2019
Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. I read it once a year. It was the first time I saw a book about a black girl in Mississippi. #DDBAskAngie https://t.co/IXOpO2tGxw
— Angie Thomas (@angiecthomas) December 10, 2016
Leave a Reply