Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Roller Skates; Shiloh

Originally posted May 22, 2003

OK, I just finished reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor (Newbery Medal 1977), Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer (Newbery Medal 1937), and Shiloh by Phyliss Reynolds Naylor (Newbery Medal 1992).

In terms of the "truly great book" category Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry definitely qualifies. It's wonderfully crafted, about something really important, and absolutely beautifully told. The author tells about a slice of history based on her own families experience, and the love she feels for her dad who told her these stories is evident through out. The story it tells is difficult. The book takes place in Mississippi in the 1930's, some 70 years after slavery ended. It is a world of sharecroppers, poverty, buying on credit at the company store, segregated schools, racial violence, night riders, and set in a time when a black person couldn't expect the law to provide justice. (Still true, I suppose, but thankfully, we have come a ways from 1930's Mississippi even if we still have a ways to go.) As hard as the story is, the family context Mildred Taylor provides holds out a thread of dignity, empowerment and hope that makes the story all the more beautiful and sad.

This thread of hope and love and beauty is what I found lacking in Paula Fox's Slave Dancer. It's definitely present in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I just felt stunned after reading Slave Dancer, Roll of Thunder is an emotional story, but in a very respectful, wise way.

The morning I finished this book I cried. It seemed like too great a privilege to just sleep through the night with out fear of attack! I wondered about explaining this stuff to Jabu. I was so thankful that this would not be his experience. I am very interested in hearing from families of older kids about how you have explored the many difficult parts of our American History (and world history for that matter) and how your children have responded. These novels make it all so real and emotional, which I think is their strength. What have your kids told you/asked you after reading them?

Anyhow, I am definitely a fan of this author. She writes with great strength of spirit and integrity. I want to read her other books. All of them! She has some titles on the Coretta Scott King award list as well.

Roller Skates was kind of a weird book to read directly after Roll of Thunder. . . it's a HUGE contrast! For one thing it's the earliest of the Newbery Medal books I've read so far (1937) and it is a whoppingly old fashioned book! It features a girl named Lucinda. (For those of you new to our discussion, know that OUR Lucinda's mom was given this book as a birth gift when Lucinda was born. One of her friends just went into a book store and asked for a story that featured someone named Lucinda!)

The author interested me because Ruth Sawyer wrote what is still the classic of storytelling "how to" literature "The Way of the Storyteller" a book I often recommend to storytelling students.

The character Lucinda is definitely appealing. . . she is a child of a privileged high society family of NYC, but she is spunky and tom boyish and unable to fill the stuffy expectations of her families social standing. The story is about a magical tenth year when her parents for health reasons must go to Italy (???) and leave Lucinda behind in the care of one of her teachers and her teacher's sister for an entire year. They live in a boarding house and Lucinda basically spends the year with an entirely unprecedented degree of freedom, roller skating happy loops around the city and making friends with everyone she meets: fruit stand peddlers, hansom cab drivers, various co-dwellers in the rooming house, a rag picker, etc. ; some of these people she wouldn't even be allowed near under normal circumstances, as she was normally under strict supervision by a French governess.

For me the story dragged a little. If you were to draw a picture of this story it would be a wiggly line going straight across the page. There wasn't a unified dramatic theme with crescendo and climax. It was more of a series of episodes. Somewhere in the middle of these I had a "I can't wait for this book to end" moment! Also, the "old fashionedness" of the book kind of kept this chipper, cheery, spunky tone of Lucinda always somewhat protected from trouble and harm and on top of what was going on, to the point of describing a murder scene and the death of a beloved child-friend with out ever reaching emotional depth! The book also skirted around some huge class issues with out ever bringing it to the full out moment of insight I would look for. Lucinda's new friends experienced hardship and poverty, but she remained in this role of their plucky friend ("maybe I can help, I'll think of something!") and she almost romanticized them in contrast to the stifling life she's escaped for the year.

The end of the book leaves Lucinda with her parents about to return and there's a sense that this year apart, and the relationships she had begun, won't necessarily be integrated into her life upcoming.

One really fun aspect of the book is the picture of NYC at that time. Lucinda roams the city freely, often alone, with out ever being in any real danger. It's clear that NYC wasn't especially dangerous at that time, at least that is what this book depicts. The book takes place in 1890. There are various glimpses into the life of that time/place and the technologies, cultures, foods, customs, etc. that are drawn with nice detail. Laced through out the book are a lot of literary references, almost as if the author was purposely trying to get young readers to want to read some of these classics she refers to.

On to Shiloh. This was a quick read for me, and I think would be quite manageable reading-wise for some of our younger readers. It's a good story about a boy who falls in love with a dog who is being mistreated by it's owner and his adventures on the way to trying to befriend this dog and protect it from harm. There is some nice tension about "what is right and what is wrong" as the boy has to struggle with various moral questions with out easy answers as he struggles to help the dog.

There is some animal cruelty stuff on the part of the dogs original owner, but it's not graphically depicted and to me wasn't hard to handle (and I'm kind of a wuss (sp?) about such things.) Also the whole story is in the context of the boy's efforts to help, which softens the harsh elements considerably. I also appreciated the author putting even the man's rough treatment of the dog in the context of this same man's rough life experiences.

OK, so for the age appropriateness question:

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry I would recommend for older readers, and for middle-old readers to read WITH parents. There is a lot of explaining to do if readers aren't up on their Black History, and this book would make a great opportunity to do some of that learning.

Roller Skates has a few touchy places (a murder and a death) but not described in what I'd consider a scary way. There would be some explaining to do to place the story in time, and I'm not sure it would hold the INTEREST of a very young reader, partly because of the old fashioned writing style, but there's nothing I'd find emotionally repelling about it in that regard. I think 8 and up could enjoy reading it, the younger ones with a parent, at least initially until the cadence of the writing style was comfy.

I'd OK Shiloh for younger readers too, even with the rough aspects, I think they are described obliquely enough and given enough context for it to be OK, and the writing style (told in the voice of an 11 year old boy) is very accessible and easy to read.

Of the three books Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is the only one that I'd get up on a soap box and demand people read!

LOVE to know what others are reading!! Love to know if anyone would review any of these books quite differently! I've got Dicey's Song (1983) and Gay-Neck (1928) checked out from the library now, along with another book by Linda Sue Park (because I loved A Single Shard so much!)

love, Louise