CCBC-Net Archives

Point of view -Reply

From: Ginny Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 10:32:00 -600

Nina, I also recall the "sidewalk incident," and I was an adult at the time of my first reading of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Taylor excells at cutting to the very quick of a reader's emotions. It's amazing to me that she has been able to sustain this level of tension utilizing the same characters and location, to which Katy referred earlier. The Well contains vivid, memorable scenes, too, ones about which today's young readers may similarly write after they become adults.
     I referred to Shadow and Substance by Rudine Sims (now Rudine Sims Bishop) in commenting on Walter Dean Myers. Mildred Taylor is also one of the Imagemakers named in Shadow and Substance. I think we can see why.
     If you have not read The Well yet, but you have read more than one of Mildred Taylor's other books, which book and/or incidents are among the most memorable ones for you? for your students? Why?
.. Ginny
******************************************************************* Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St. Madison, WI 53706 USA CCBC fax: 608&2?33
*********************** Responding to Ginny's question about the character of Charlie Simms. I always felt 'uncomfortable' -- not necessarily in a bad way -about his character. I understand this is a common reaction for white readers, because he is the one redeemable white character, yet he is completely estranged -- almost exiled -- stripped of community. While some may find this a criticism of Taylor, I find it a very powerful device in her work. It illustrates a tension of that part of history that I don't think is usually portrayed in children's literature, and magnifies the overall tension of the times -- giving a feeling of the impossibility that the state of things could continue as they were. (It is interesting also that Charlie Simms is definetely a 'device' in the story, almost in the way that African-Americans have historically been used in the canon of American Literature. Taylor lets him be a character as well as a device, though, which helps him succeed as both.)

Now this is really going to date me, but here goes -- My fifth grade class read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry". Some perspective: it was a class of about 30 kids -- about 60% African American, 30% white -in an urban area, public school, fifteen years ago, headed by a white, female teacher. I'm also white and female. Anyhow, from that first reading, I don't remember the character of Charlie Simms at all
-- or really any of the white characters. But I remember VIVIDLY identifying with the character of Cassie. By 'vividly' I mean I can still call up the pictures I had in my head as I read that story for the first time (especially the sidewalk incident), and in every one I'm holding Cassie's hand (literally) . I don't know if this can say anything about anyone else's experience -- but in mine, Taylor's work succeded brilliantly in bringing a quiet, lower-middle-class white girl in 1981 into the world of Cassie Logan. How's that for point of view?

Nina Lindsay Student--School of Library & Info. Studies UW Madison nlindsay at mail.soemadison.wisc.edu
Received on Fri 27 Oct 1995 11:32:00 AM CDT