Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Summary of the Plot The Logan family works hard to keep the small piece of farmland they own. They endure many racial injustices. The children are harassed by a school bus full of white children, so they dig out a ditch in the road, trapping the bus and breaking the axle. Cassie, one of the Logan daughters, takes a trip to the nearby town of Strawberry and is shocked by the disrespect she is greeted with. Meanwhile, more serious problems are developing. The Wallace boys burn some local black men, killing one, and so the Logan family begins a boycott of their store. When Stacey, their oldest boy, gets in a fight with his best friend T. J. at the Wallace store, Mama decides to take a tour of the local community and urge people not to let their children go there and not to purchase goods there. However, many families have nowhere else to shop. The Logans offer to buy good for them in Vicksburg, and Mr. Jamison backs their credit.

Meanwhile, Christmas comes, and both Uncle Hammer and Papa come home to join the family. Uncle Hammer drives a shiny new car. When Harlan Granger comes to try to convince the Logans to stop the boycott, Hammer and Papa are both defiant. However, Mama soon loses her teaching job, and other pressure is put on the Logan family. Other families who sharecrop Granger land are forced to return to the Wallace store. And finally, Papa's leg is broken during a violent attack he suffers while trying to make a trip to Vicksburg. Only the brute strength of L. T., a man Papa brings home to help work and defend the farm, drives away the attackers.

Soon, Granger forces the Logans to pay up on a loan they once took out from the bank. Uncle Hammer has to sell his car in order to make the payment. Meanwhile, T. J. has become a rogue, a known thief, and he hangs out with two trouble-making White teenagers, Melvin and R. W.. One day, they bring him along on a murderous rampage and manage to frame him. Papa and L. T. go to stop the lynching that follows. Almost as soon as they leave, however, the cotton field catches fire, as if it was struck by lightning. The lynch mob and the local black farmers must band together in order to stop the fire. It turns out that Papa started the fire in order to stop the lynching.

Character List/Summary and Analysis of the Characters Cassie Logan is narrator and protagonist. Cassie is the second-oldest Logan child. She has a fiery temper like her Uncle Hammer. Also, she is very naive concerning the facts of racism. Little Man (Clayton Chester Logan) is a meticulously neat first-grader, Little Man is the youngest of the Logan children. Stacey Logan is a thirteen-year-old boy, Stacey is the oldest of the Logan children. He is part-adult, part-child. Christopher-John is a cheerful seven-year-old, Christopher-John is the second youngest of the Logan children. He is timid.

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Papa (David Logan) is Cassie's father. He values his independence highly, leaving to work on the railroad in order not to lose ownership of Logan land. Mama (Mary Logan) is Cassie's mother, a schoolteacher. Uncle Hammer is Papa's brother who lives in Chicago. He has a short temper. Big Ma (Caroline Logan) is Papa's mother. A woman of sixty, she runs the Logan farm. T. J. Avery is a trouble-making friend of Stacey's. The Averies are sharecroppers on Granger land. T. J. has a younger brother named Claude. Jeremy Simms is a white boy who is often beaten for walking to school with and associating with the Logan children. His sister is Lillian Jean, is often rude to Cassie. He has two big brothers, Melvin and R. W., who use T. J., pretending they are his friend. Lillian Jean Simms is a prissy seventh grader. Melvin and R. W. Simms are the older Simms brothers who make trouble. They pretend to befriend T. J., but make fun of him behind his back. L. T. Morrison is a big, burly man with streaks of white hair who comes to work on the Logan farm. Mr. Jamison is a local lawyer; a white man. His forefathers bought land from Harlan Granger during the reconstruction, and sold some of it to the Logan family. Mr. Jamison is very sympathetic to the plight of the black community. The Wallace Family (Kaleb, Dewberry, etc.) runs a general store on Harlan Granger's land. They are a violent, brutal people. Harlan Granger is a rich plantation owner who is anxious to buy back the Logan's land.

General Themes -Racism/Discrimination -Friendship and Family -Identity and Survival -the Depression

Important Symbols The Logan land symbolizes independence and security in an otherwise insecure time period. T.J.’s handgun represents T.J.’s greed and how it gets him into trouble. The lightning symbolizes the trouble the Logans face because of T.J. The Fig Tree represents blacks fighting or competing against whites (the oak tree). It represents that blacks have to stand up to whites.

Key Facts 2 Jennifer Velardo Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Full title · Roll of Thunder, Hear My cry

Author · Mildred D. Taylor

Genre · Historical fiction

Language written · English

Time and place written ·

Date of publication · 1976

Narrator · Cassie

Point of view · first person

Tense · Past

Setting · 1933 Depression era Mississippi

Important Quotes "Look out there, Cassie girl. All that belongs to you. You ain't never had to live on nobody's place but your own and long as I live and the family survives, you'll never have to."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 1 "Papa always meant what he said--and he swung a mean switch." -Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 2 "it's them again. They's ridin' tonight."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 3 "Friends gotta trust each other, Stacey, 'cause ain't nothin' like a true friend."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 4 "Well, you just get your little black self back over there and wait some more."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 5 "No day in all my life had ever been as cruel as this one."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 5 "Seems to me if Stacey's not smart enough to hold onto a good coat, he don't deserve it." -Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 7 "These are things they need to hear, baby. It's their history."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 7 "We ain't never gonna lose this land."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 7 "We Logans don't have much to do with white folks. You know why? 'Cause white folks mean trouble."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 7 "I'm a Southerner, born and bred, but that doesn't mean I approve of all that goes on here, 3 Jennifer Velardo Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

and there are a lot of other white people who feel the same."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 7 "Got me better friends than y'all! They give me things and treat me like I'm a man..." - Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 8 "He's got a need to show us where we stand in the scheme of things. He's got a powerful need to do that."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 10 "This thing's been coming a long time."-Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 12 "What happened to T.J. in the night I did not understand, but I knew that it would not pass. And I cried for those things which had happened in the night and would not pass."- Mildred Taylor, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Ch. 12

Author Information Mildred D. Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi, but her family soon moved to Toledo, Ohio. Her father was a habitual storyteller, and by the time she went to high school, Taylor was confident that she would be a writer when she grew up. She attended the University of Toledo, and after graduation worked for two years in Ethiopia, teaching English. She has worked at the University of Colorado, where as a member of the Black Student Alliance she helped establish a Black Studies program.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was first published in 1976, and won the Newbery Medal in 1977. It is set in 1933, in Mississippi--during the Great Depression, when many people were very poor. Poverty is a fact of life for many of the book's characters. Although the Logans own their own land, many in the black community are sharecroppers. Sharecroppers are farmers who do not own the land they work. In exchange for the use of the land, the farmers must give a certain percentage of their harvest to the owner.

Resources http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/rollofthunder/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_of_Thunder,_Hear_My_Cry http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Roll_Of_Thunder/Roll_Of_Thunder_Hear_My_ Cry16.html http://yareviews.wikispaces.com/ROLL+OF+THUNDER+HEAR+MY+CRY http://www.coursework.info/GCSE/English_Literature/Prose_Fiction/By_Author/Mildre d_Taylor/Symbols_in__Roll_of_Thunder__Hear_My_Cry_L51909.html www.gradesaver.com/roll-of-thunder-hear-my-cry/study.../section2/

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