The Friendship - Hardcover

Taylor, Mildred D.; Juvenile Collection (Library Of Congress)

4

1,453 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803704178 ISBN 13: 9780803704176

Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1987

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Cassie witnesses a black man address a white storekeeper by his first name.

"A powerful story . . .Readers will be haunted by its drama and emotion long after they have closed the book." --Booklist

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Review:

It's hot and humid in 1933 Mississippi, when an elderly black man and a white store owner test their friendship against a backdrop of racism and peer pressure. An explosive confrontation takes place when the black man, Tom Bee, greets the clerk, John Wallace, by his first name--an intimacy unheard of at the time. A group of witnesses heckles Wallace for what they perceive as his permissiveness, and in spite of his private promise to Bee to allow him to greet him this way, Wallace betrays Bee, shooting him in the leg. This brief but poignant story won the 1988 Coretta Scott King Award. It provides strong characterization as well as food for thought on racism and human relations.

About the Author:

Mildred D. Taylor is the author of nine novels including The Road to Memphis,Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Land, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Her books have won numerous awards, among them a Newbery Medal (forRoll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), four Coretta Scott King Awards, and a Boston GlobeHorn Book Award. Her bookThe 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.

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.

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