The Road to Memphis

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Paperback
$9.99 US
5.13"W x 7.75"H x 0.55"D  
On sale Apr 12, 2016 | 320 Pages | 9781101997550
Grade 5 & Up
Reading Level: Lexile 670L
A stunning repackage of a companion to Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, with cover art by two-time Caldecott Honor Award winner Kadir Nelson!

As America hovers on the brink of war, seventeen year-old Cassie Logan fights a battle closer to home. She dreams of college and law school. But no amount of schooling can prepare her for the violent explosion that takes place when her friend Moe lashes out at his white tormentors--an action unheard of in Mississippi as the country prepares for World War II. Moe will be in even greater danger if he stays in town, so it is up to Cassie, her brother, and their friends to accompany Moe on the road to Memphis--and to safety.


"Cassie recounts harrowing events during late 1941. An engrossing picture of fine young people endeavoring to find the right way in a world that persistently wrongs them."—Kirkus Reviews

"An enlightening, moving novel."—Publishers Weekly
Mildred D. Taylor is the author of nine novels including The Road to MemphisLet the Circle Be UnbrokenThe Land, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Her books have won numerous awards, among them a Newbery Medal (for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), four Coretta Scott King Awards, and a Boston Globe—Horn Book Award. Her book The Land was awarded the L.A. Times Book Prize and the PEN Award for Children’s Literature. In 2003, Ms. Taylor was named the First Laureate of the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature. Mildred Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and grew up in Toledo, Ohio. After graduating from the University of Toledo, she served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia for two years and then spent the next year traveling throughout the United States, working and recruiting for the Peace Corps. At the University of Colorado’s School of Journalism, she helped created a Black Studies program and taught in the program for two years. Ms. Taylor has worked as a proofreader-editor and as program coordinator for an international house and a community free school. She now devotes her time to her family, writing, and what she terms “the family ranch” in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. View titles by Mildred D. Taylor
  • WINNER
    Coretta Scott King Awards
"Cassie recounts harrowing events during late 1941. An engrossing picture of fine young people endeavoring to find the right way in a world that persistently wrongs them."—Kirkus Reviews

"An enlightening, moving novel."—Publishers Weekly

"Mildred D. Taylor's novels about the Logan family have been hugely popular for two good reasons: They bring alive a fragment of the history of black life in the Deep South... [and] paint an appealingly detailed picture of the warm family relations and the embracing communal spirit to remind us that black life, day to day, however troubled, is not the disaster it looks like when it is simplified by sociology. There is pleasure, dignity, and palpable pride in Great Faith, near Strawberry, Miss., where the Logans are landowners with a fierce attachment to their own soil."—The New York Times

"Powerful, readable, and fast-moving."—VOYA

"This is a dramatic, painful book."—School Library Journal

"A powerful...picture of the racist menace in pre-civil rights days."—Booklist

About

A stunning repackage of a companion to Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, with cover art by two-time Caldecott Honor Award winner Kadir Nelson!

As America hovers on the brink of war, seventeen year-old Cassie Logan fights a battle closer to home. She dreams of college and law school. But no amount of schooling can prepare her for the violent explosion that takes place when her friend Moe lashes out at his white tormentors--an action unheard of in Mississippi as the country prepares for World War II. Moe will be in even greater danger if he stays in town, so it is up to Cassie, her brother, and their friends to accompany Moe on the road to Memphis--and to safety.


"Cassie recounts harrowing events during late 1941. An engrossing picture of fine young people endeavoring to find the right way in a world that persistently wrongs them."—Kirkus Reviews

"An enlightening, moving novel."—Publishers Weekly

Author

Mildred D. Taylor is the author of nine novels including The Road to MemphisLet the Circle Be UnbrokenThe Land, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Her books have won numerous awards, among them a Newbery Medal (for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), four Coretta Scott King Awards, and a Boston Globe—Horn Book Award. Her book The Land was awarded the L.A. Times Book Prize and the PEN Award for Children’s Literature. In 2003, Ms. Taylor was named the First Laureate of the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature. Mildred Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and grew up in Toledo, Ohio. After graduating from the University of Toledo, she served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia for two years and then spent the next year traveling throughout the United States, working and recruiting for the Peace Corps. At the University of Colorado’s School of Journalism, she helped created a Black Studies program and taught in the program for two years. Ms. Taylor has worked as a proofreader-editor and as program coordinator for an international house and a community free school. She now devotes her time to her family, writing, and what she terms “the family ranch” in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. View titles by Mildred D. Taylor

Awards

  • WINNER
    Coretta Scott King Awards

Praise

"Cassie recounts harrowing events during late 1941. An engrossing picture of fine young people endeavoring to find the right way in a world that persistently wrongs them."—Kirkus Reviews

"An enlightening, moving novel."—Publishers Weekly

"Mildred D. Taylor's novels about the Logan family have been hugely popular for two good reasons: They bring alive a fragment of the history of black life in the Deep South... [and] paint an appealingly detailed picture of the warm family relations and the embracing communal spirit to remind us that black life, day to day, however troubled, is not the disaster it looks like when it is simplified by sociology. There is pleasure, dignity, and palpable pride in Great Faith, near Strawberry, Miss., where the Logans are landowners with a fierce attachment to their own soil."—The New York Times

"Powerful, readable, and fast-moving."—VOYA

"This is a dramatic, painful book."—School Library Journal

"A powerful...picture of the racist menace in pre-civil rights days."—Booklist

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