The Well: David's Story

by Mildred D. Taylor

Overview

Another powerful story in the Logan Family Saga and companion to Mildred D. Taylor's Newbery Award-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

For David Logan, a time of distress means taking the higher road. 

During a drought, the Logan family shares their well water with their neighbors, black and white alike. But David’s brother Hammer finds it hard to share with Charlie Simms, who torments them because they are black. Hammer’s pride and Charlie’s meanness are a dangerous combination, and tensions between the boys build and build—until they explode.
 

* “A compelling novel about prejudice and the saving power of human dignity."—School Library Journal, starred review 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101657959
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	09/01/1998
Series:	Logan Family Series
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

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 (for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), four Coretta Scott King Awards, and a Boston Globe—Horn Book Award. Her book The 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.

Editorial Reviews

Taylor's compact novella revisits the long-suffering Logan family, this time focusing on the boyhood of David (father of Cassie Logan from Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry) In the early 1900s, all the wells in their part of Mississippi have run dry-all except for the Logans'. White neighbors come from miles around to collect water, but despite the Logans' generosity, they treat David and his family with enormous disrespect. When young Charlie Simms's taunting of the Logan boys turns physical, David's older brother Hammer chooses to retaliate-a move that causes him and his family pain from all sides. Taylor, obviously in tune with these fully-developed characters, creates for them an intense and compelling situation and skillfully delivers powerful messages about racism and moral fortitude. This insightful read stands on its own, but will have a special resonance for fans of the series. Ages 8-12. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 4-6Another contribution to the Logan family saga, this is Father's account of an incident from his boyhood. During a drought in 1910, 10-year-old David Logan's family has the only working well in their part of Mississippi. They share their water willingly with both black and white neighbors, but white teenager Charlie Simms tests their generosity, goading David's older brother Hammer into a fight requiring restitution in the form of labor on the Simms's farm. Charlie and his brother get even for the disgrace of Hammer's beating by secretly contaminating the Logans' well with dead animals, only to be exposed and punished when a neighbor reveals their act. While David narrates, this is really Hammer's story; his pride and steely determination not to be put down are the source of the novel's action and power. Readers will feel the Logans' fear and righteous anger at the injustice and humiliation they suffer because they are black. As in The Friendship (Dial, 1987), Taylor has used her gift for storytelling and skillful characterization to craft a brief but compelling novel about prejudice and the saving power of human dignity.Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY

School Library Journal

"Charlie Simms was always mean, and that's the truth of it." From the first line, this short, intense novel of racist violence is told with the immediacy of a family narrative. David Logan (the father in Taylor's 1977 Newbery Award winner, "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry") tells a story of his boyhood in rural Mississippi at a time when "uppity niggers" can be hanged for thinking themselves equal to whites and the horror of slavery still haunts his mother's memory. The Logans are among the few black families to own land, and during a prolonged drought, they have a well of sweet water, which they share with their neighbors, black and white. Most people are grateful, but the white Simms family hates being beholden to blacks. The tense confrontation erupts in beatings and terror. The cast is large for so short a novel--it's hard sometimes to keep track of all the people in the community--but the Logan family is beautifully individualized. David is able to heed his father's warning, "Use your head, not your fists," but David's hotheaded older brother can't bear the constant humiliation. The well of the title is also a metaphor for the history of the place: both the bigotry that lies beneath the surface and the sweet strength of family ties.

Hazel Rochman