Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

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

Cassie is a black girl growing up in the early twentieth century in America. She is young, and doesn't understand why the White Children's school bus always splashes her on the way to school. Why they even have a school bus. And she doesn't understand the 'night men' and what they have been doing. Why are they all so mean to her, when God created them all equal? Cassie begins to find out, and as she does, so do we...

The first thing I liked about Roll of Thunder was that it is a non-fiction book hidden in a fiction book. Whilst the actual story is made up, you get to learn a bit about American history. This was interesting for me as I live in Britain, go to a British school, and so therefore I mostly learn about British history. Learning about something else was a change, especially in the form of an excellent fiction book. When i first saw Roll of Thunder, I thought it was going to be a bit boring. The cover didn't really fit in with what you would expect a book to have as its cover nowadays (Although this is just the cover of the version I read. A quick search on the internet proves that there are quite a few different versions). I am sad to admit that I do sometimes judge a book by its cover, and so therefore probably wouldn't have picked up Roll of Thunder if I hadn't heard it was such a good book. Now, onto the actual plot. It was a good story as a whole, with what felt like quite a few side stories (Like Forrest Gump, which I recently watched). Like so many of the books I seem to be reading recently, it was very hard hitting, with many sad and shocking parts. There was also a lot of bad language, mostly against black people. This only added to how realistic the book was in describing what life was like for black people in North America in the early 20th century. I thought it was good that it was told from Cassie's perspective, and not any of her siblings. If it had been told from anyone else's perspective, then there would be no story, as either the narrator would either know not enough, or too much, about the world around them.

I am going to give it an 8/10
And an age rating of 13+