When I first became a children’s librarian I looked to the Newbery and Caudill Awards to get a quick immersion into the world of Children’s Literature. I knew my knowledge at the time was slim, but I had no idea what worlds were going to be opened to me. And that is how I discovered Mildred D. Taylor.
Taylor won the 1977 Newbery award for her novel, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and went on to write the two sequels, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, and The Road to Memphis. There is a novella, Song of the Trees that precedes Roll of Thunder. (I cannot figure out if I read it or didn’t know it existed. I wish I had kept better records back then.) I read the former three titles all in a row and was captivated. Taylor’s language is gorgeous in its southern, black dialect, even when harsh. Then she published the BIG prequel, The Land, and I knew I would have to read it especially after it won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2002. So after a decade… it is finished!
Here’s the thing. What kind of title is The Land? I’m sure my long wait had more to do with its abrupt title than anything else. It sounds… boring… like it will be full of long, meandering descriptions of … well, land. I don’t take landscape pictures for instance. I like characters. And here this book was looking like the character was the Land. Uh, huh. Thrilled as you can see.
But the central theme, (oh, dear, I’m going to sound like a literature major or a teacher,) that connects all of these novels about the Logan Family, is Land and the importance of having and owning your own land. And for a black family, living in Depression-Era Mississippi, having land makes them unique and rich and – dangerous? They don’t fit in with the other black families; they’re too uppity for the sharecroppers, both black and white. And the Logans make the white land-owners nervous to say the least.
As indifferent as I felt in picking The Land up, it is surprising just how easily I was thoroughly absorbed into the story. The story tells of how the Logan children’s grandfather acquired their land. Their grandfather, Paul-Edward Logan is the son of a white plantation owner and a former slave to that plantation. Paul’s mother, Deborah, upon being freed from slavery, chose to remain on the plantation with her two children and continues to serve the plantation family. Paul’s father, Edward Logan, treats all of his children like his own regardless of if their mother is his white wife or his former slave.
Poor Paul favors his father and could pass for white in a place where not everyone knows his family. He has three older white brothers and one who is his same age who is his also best friend. He has an older sister by the same mother. Paul’s father always insisted on teaching his colored children to read, write and figure. And his white sons were expected to pass on their education to their colored siblings. While this seemed normal to the kids, it was still not acceptable to society. It is a difficult lesson to learn when Paul finds that he is equal to his brothers at home, but he is a colored boy or worse elsewhere. Paul has to leave the comforts of home in order to discover his place in the world as well as how to survive as a colored man without the help of his white daddy.
I highly recommend these books to junior high, senior high and adults, male and female alike. They are rich in information from the time period, but they make you FEEL the heartache rather than just hear about it. I daresay they would be welcome fiction to supplement any study of the Depression and life before the Civil Rights Movement. Very simply, the books are written so well, that this white woman could “get it.” I finally GOT the inequality and the effects that are felt even to this day. And I “got it” through an author and her art – storytelling. Taylor shared the stories that she grew up on. Priceless.
No comments:
Post a Comment