Women’s History Month: Mildred D. Taylor:

History was made in 1977 when Mildred D. Taylor became only the second Black author to receive the prestigious John Newbery Medal. The Newbery is awarded to “the most distinguished American children’s book published the previous year.” The first book by a Black author to receive the award was M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton.  Taylor’s book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, a part of the Logan Family series won the award in 1977. In 2016 Dial Books released a 40th anniversary special edition with cover art by Kadir Nelson and an introduction by Jacqueline Woodson. Numerous awards, honors, and high praise have been bestowed upon the books in the Logan Family series.

Mildred D. Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1943. Her father moved the family to Toledo Ohio when Taylor was three months-old. Although she did not grow up in the South, family trips to Mississippi stirred a desire in her to chronicle her rich family history. Wilbert Lee Taylor, her father, was one of the primary storytellers of the family. He “told her many stories that he had been told when he was a boy. Some of the stories he had actually lived himself.” Taylor penned her first novel when she was 19. The story was not about her family. It received a little buzz but was not published. After studying English, history, and journalism in college and graduate school as well as holding several positions as an educator, the first book in the Logan series, Song of the Trees, was published in 1975. Forty-five years later, the final book, All the Days Past, All the Days to Come was released on January 7, 2020. Taylor said about the last book, “It saddens me that this book is the end, but there is also a sense of relief. I am done!” The books in the Logan series are listed below.