From: Robin Smith <robinsmith59>
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:06:22 -0600

I'll slip in a quick response to John Bennett's question before we get into the Printz discussion. The question was why Mildred Taylor chose to write The Land, the prequel to Roll of Thunder, Hear My cry, after Roll of Thunder.

Mildred Taylor did not write the Logan series in chronological order. Roll of Thunder (1976) takes place in 1933, Let the Circle Be Unbroken (1981) in 1934, and The Road to Memphis (1990) in 1941. But The Well (1995), for example, was written after these but takes place in 1910. And Mississippi Bridge (1990) was published the same year as The Road to Memphis but takes place in 1931. Though they were written out of sequence, they form a remarkable family saga, starting with The Land (2001), right after the Civil War, and ending with the forthcoming tenth volume which will take the family north through WWII and the early civil rights movement. The Gold Cadillac (1987) takes place in 1950, and though the characters' names are different it is intended to be part of the series. The intended audience for the novels varies, too. Song of the Trees is for grades 3-5, while The Land is a big, challenging read for grades 7-up.

I wrote a piece on The Road to Memphis for the current issue of Book Links magazine
(January 2004). It's a "Book Strategies" essay that includes a chronology of the series.

Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, Tennessee schneiderd at ensworth.com
Received on Mon 16 Feb 2004 02:06:22 PM CST