Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Celebrating 40 years of Courage, Love and Pride

National Writing Contest

Penguin Young Readers & We Need Diverse Books
are teaming up to honor Mildred D. Taylor to find a new, diverse voice in fiction!

In 1974, the Council on Interracial Books sponsored a writing contest seeking out diverse voices. Mildred D. Taylor was the winner of the African-American segment for the manuscript that became Song of the Trees (Dial, 1975), her first book. It introduced the Logan family and was followed by Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976), which won the Newbery Medal.

Forty years later, in partnership with We Need Diverse Books™, Penguin Young Readers celebrates this momentous publication by launching a debut children's fiction contest to find talented, ethnically diverse authors writing for readers ages 8-14.

The Entry period has closed. Come back for more information on the winning submission!

With a brilliant new cover from Caldecott Honor winner Kadir Nelson and a new introduction by Jacqueline Woodson, author of National Book Award and Newbery Honor Award winning Brown Girl Dreaming.

Winner of the Newbery Medal, this remarkably moving novel has impressed the hearts and minds of millions of readers.

Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story—Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect.

"I am a writer because Ms. Taylor wrote this book and I saw myself inside the pages of it."

Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award Winner for her New York Times bestselling memoir BROWN GIRL DREAMING

"[Taylor] writes not with rancor or bitterness of indignities, but with pride, strength, and respect for humanity."

The New York Times Book Review

Other books by MILDRED D. TAYLOR

Let the Circle be Unbroken

The Road to Memphis

The Land

Mississippi Bridge

Song of the Trees

The Friendship

The Well

The Gold Cadillac

Mildred Taylor Mildred D. Taylor is the author of nine books including The Road to Memphis, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Land, The Well and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Her books have won numerous awards, among them a Newbery Medal and Germany's Buxtehude Bulle Award (both 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. In 2004, Mississippi celebrated a Mildred D. Taylor Day, and Mildred Taylor returned to her roots to address several hundred school children and adults at The University of Mississippi.

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.