Narrated by nine-year-old Cassie Logan in Mississippi in 1933, the novel follows the Logans, a Black family unusual among their sharecropping neighbors because they own their land. That ownership gives them pride and a measure of independence, but not safety. Through one turbulent year — humiliation at school and in town, the burnings and night riders, a boycott of the Wallace store, an attack on Cassie's father, and the near-lynching of her friend T.J. Avery — Cassie learns why the land is the family's lifeblood and what dignity costs under Jim Crow. Based closely on stories Taylor heard from her father and family in Mississippi, it is the second book in the Logan family saga, following Song of the Trees (1975). It won the 1977 Newbery Medal and remains a cornerstone of American children's literature.
Author: Mildred D. Taylor · Original publisher: Dial Press (New York), 1976
