Which author won the Newbery Medal in 1977 for 'Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry'?

Mildred D. Taylor won the 1977 Newbery Medal for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Published in 1976, the novel is narrated by nine-year-old Cassie Logan, an African American girl growing up with her family in 1930s Mississippi. Through Cassie's eyes, Taylor depicts Jim Crow segregation, racism, intimidation, sharecropping, lynching, and the importance of Black landownership during the Great Depression.

The story is part of Taylor's Logan family series. It follows the earlier novella Song of the Trees and is later continued by books including Let the Circle Be Unbroken. Taylor drew on family history and African American experience to create a world in which the Logan family's independence and land are continually threatened.

Readers sometimes confuse the publication year with the award year. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry came out in 1976, but the Newbery Medal was awarded in 1977. Taylor's novel also received a Coretta Scott King honor and became one of the most frequently taught American children's novels about race, family, and resistance.