Cassie Logan has been a heroine of mine for some time, so it made perfect sense to me that I schedule the spotlight on Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry for today, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Of course, that gave me the excuse to pull the book out (once I tracked it down on my kids’ shelves–sometimes it isn’t clear if I’m raising readers or book thieves) and do a little re-reading.  And–I’m a little embarrassed to admit this–I noticed the Author’s Note at the beginning for the first time and read it.  What can I say?  I was always in a hurry to get to the story!

But can I recommend that if you come across this note you slow down and read it?  In her note Mildred Taylor talks about her father, a master storyteller, and the heritage he passed to her.  The life lessons he taught, and the practical skills, too.  As I read I found my heart warming to this man I’d never known, who was a father as a father should be.  And my heart constricted as she talked of how he’d died and how his stories as he told them died with him.  And yet, his daughter tells his stories–their family stories–and they live on.  And call me crazy, but as I reached the end of this moving tribute of a storyteller daughter to her storyteller father and noticed the date, my heart twitched again.  It’s dated April, 1976, and is written one week after her father died.  Which would have made me approximately one month old.  Somehow this fusion point of dates and generations, spanning across race and miles in both years and countryside, represents to me what stories like Roll of Thunder can do.

Stories told true, with courage and skill, reach across the boundaries and years to lift each of us out of our own skin and settle us inside someone else’s.  And in so doing, we can become one.  So someone else’s father lives in my heart, and parts of my story live in you.  This is the mark of great storytelling, and I know of no greater way to build bridges and heal hearts.

So today I’m grateful for all the old storytellers, for Ms. Taylor and her father, and that I carry the Logan family in my heart and head.  I hope you have a great holiday!  Let me know if you’ve got any great books lined up, and maybe they’ll find themselves onto the spotlight schedule. 😉

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