Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - School Assignment

ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY

BY: Mildred D. Taylor

FIRST SENTENCE

“Little Man, would you come on?  You keep it up and you’re going to make us late.”

SUMMARY

Cassie was a ten-year-old black girl living in the 1930’s.  This was about 25 years before the Civil Rights Movement began.  At that time, blacks and whites were separated in the South.  The black schools were rundown, and the textbooks were old and outdated.  Cassie’s family was one of the few black families to own land in the South, but they were still very poor. 

Cassie’s mother was a teacher and her father was a farmer.  Since our country was in the midst of The Great Depression, jobs were hard to come by.  Cassie’s father was fortunate to be offered a railroad job in another city.  He hoped that the extra income would help his family to survive.

Back home on the farm, Cassie experienced the harsh reality of being a black in the South.  The white bus driver splashed the black children with mud and water on purpose.  Cassie was forced to apologize to Lillian Jean, a white girl, for something she did not even do.  Her father returned only to be shot because he chose to shop at a different store. 

The story ended on a high note, as the local white residents helped Cassie’s family extinguish a fire on their farm.  Perhaps there was hope for equality after all.  

REVIEW

While I do not read a great deal of historical fiction, I do enjoy this genre.  Reading fictional stories about daily life is an entertaining way to learn about the past.  For example, A Long Way from Chicago, was a humorous historical fiction book set in the 1930’s that I had the pleasure of reading last year.  In comparison, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, took a more serious look at that time in history.

Before reading this book, I thought I understood what blacks went through in the 1930’s.  As it turns out, I knew very little.  Cassie’s story taught me about the day-to-day struggles that blacks faced.  Since I am the same age as Cassie, I felt that I could grasp her emotions much better than if the story had been told from an adult point-of-view.   Cassie never let the little things get to her and she served as a role model to the other children.

Reading about the cruel nature of whites towards blacks was hard for me.  I felt embarrassed by what my ancestors had done.  How could anyone be so unkind to others just because of their skin tone?  It is no wonder that blacks eventually got the courage to protest for their rights. 

On a separate note, this book had so many characters that I found it difficult to keep them all straight in my head.  Many of these characters were just mentioned in one chapter, never to be mentioned again.  Others popped up throughout the book, but yet I didn’t feel as though I knew them very well.  Perhaps the story could have been told with more emphasis on the main characters.

EXTRA SCHOOL THINGS

Personal Allusions - Text to Self Connection

My favorite text to self connection was during the fire on Cassie’s family’s farm.  She was worried about her family being injured or killed.  I can relate to being concerned for a family member.  My brother suffered a serious head injury on the playground last year.  I was devastated and I worried that he would not recover.  Even today, I find myself being overly protective of him.

I found another text to self connection when Cassie’s family got together for Christmas.  My extended family has visited on Thanksgiving and we stayed up late into the night telling stories and remembering old times.  Our celebration was similar to Cassie’s.  Having your family close for a holiday can be a special time to make memories.

Theme - Big Idea

The theme of this book is that people are essentially good.   The whites in the South were raised to treat the blacks as inferiors.  When faced with a fire that could destroy Cassie’s family’s farm, the entire community came to their rescue.  Even the whites, who had treated Cassie’s family poorly in the past, came through and helped. 

Analysis of Literary Devices- Identification and Purpose of Key Devices

Cassie and Paul Edward named the pond on their farm Caroline, after Big Ma.  This was an example of personification, where human qualities are given to non-human things.  The pond, like Big Ma, was calm and peaceful.

The bus-splashing incident was a great example of irony.  Irony is when an event happens that is the opposite of what is to be expected.  It is also an example of poetic justice because evil was punished and good was rewarded.  The cruel children, who laughed at Cassie when she was splashed, ended up being splashed too.  Those children were being punished for their misdeed while Cassie was rewarded by seeing them suffer for a change.

Literary Allusions- Compare This Book to Another Book or Movie

Enemies don’t usually work together toward a common goal.  In Harry Potter, Harry and Draco must work as a team to defeat the magical fire.  Although they had long been enemies, the two looked beyond their past and united.

In comparison, whites and blacks joined forces to put out the fire on Cassie’s family’s farm.  Whites normally did not help blacks with even the smallest of tasks, but here they put differences aside and saved the farm. 

RATING

3        Plot

3        Characters

4        Attention Grabbing

2        Girlie-Meter

4        Ending

16      TOTAL

4        STARS

Melina (Hi Mr. Fitz)