This is our last book review of 2025! I have enjoyed this little series and I hope you have as well. My 11 year old wanted to do one last review with his second favorite book of the year. Here we go! Roll of Thunder, Here My Cry

Tell us a little about the book. ‘Roll of Thunder, Here My Cry’ is a book about 4 children, their parents, and grandmother, who live in the south in America during the decade of the 1930s. The main characters are black Americans who farm cotton. The children’s names are Stacey, Cassie, Christopher John, and Little Man. The book centers around the black race being treated poorly.

Who is your favorite character and why? I’d have to say Stacey. I don’t know why he is my favorite.

Does anything scary or funny happen in the book? Their friend, TJ, is blamed for stealing a gun, which he did, but he had been told he was allowed to go in and grab the gun. TJ gets beat up and more happens to him in the next book.

Would you recommend this book to others? Yes as well as the sequel, ‘Let the Circle Be Unbroken.’ There are other books, too, such as ‘Song of the Trees’, ‘The Friendship’, ‘The Road to Memphis’, and ‘Mississippi Bridge.’

Who wrote these books? Mildred D. Taylor

Is there a memorable part you’d like to mention? There was a ‘white’s only’ bus that always swerved towards them so that they’d have to splash in the ditch and climb up the bank. So the kids dug a trench through the road that looked like a puddle and the bus got stuck. That way they could walk in the middle of the road without getting wet for a few weeks.

Tell us about Mama and the school. Mama was one of the schoolteachers. The kids got books passed down from the white schools after they had been roughed up and scratched for many years.

Thank you for this book review and interview. I hope everyone that hasn’t read this book will go out and grab a copy at their local library or bookstore. We sure love bringing ‘new to us’ books home from secondhand stores.

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