Mississippi Bridge

Logans #4.5

by Mildred D. Taylor, Max Ginsburg (Illustrator)

Another powerful story in the Logan Family Saga and companion to Mildred D. Taylor's Newbery Award-winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.A day of conflict and tragedy.Jeremy Simms watches from the porch of the general store as the weekly bus from Jackson comes through his town. His neighbor Stacey Logan and Stacey's brothers and sister are there to see their grandmother off on a trip. Jeremy's friend Josias Williams is taking the bus to his new job. But Josias and the Logans are black, and in Mississippi in the 1930s, black people can't ride the bus if that means there won't be enough room for white people to ride. When several white passengers arrive at the last minute, the driver sends Josias and Stacey's grandmother off the bus. Then comes a terrifying moment that unites all the townspeople in a nightmare that will change their lives forever.“Well written and thought provoking, this book will haunt readers and generate much discussion.”—School Library Journal

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Middle Grade, African American, Historical

72 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Mildred DeLois Taylor is an African-American writer known for her works exploring the struggle faced by African-American families in the Deep South.

Taylor was born in Jackson, Mississippi, but lived there only a short amount of time, then moved to Toledo, Ohio, where she spent most of her childhood. She now lives in Colorado with her daughter.

Many of her works are based on stories of her family that she heard while growing up. She has stated that these anecdotes became very clear in her mind, and in fact, once she realized that adults talked about the past, "I began to visualize all the family who had once known the land, and I felt as if I knew them, too ..." Taylor has talked about how much history was in the stories; some stories took place during times of slavery and some post-slavery.

Taylor's most famous book is Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. In 1977, the book won the Newbery Medal. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is the middle book, chronologically, in the Logans series that also includes titles such as The Land, Song of the Trees, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, and The Road to Memphis. Her collective contributions to children's literature resulted in her being awarded the inaugural NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature in 2003.

Reviews

[Linda ~ they got the mustard out! ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting to get a story from the POV of Jeremy Simms, the white boy who keeps trying to befriend the Logan children but for obvious reasons, they've been hesitant of his intentions. This is a very short story, just 45 pages (with larger font than normal), showing Jeremy's interactions with the townsfolk at the store and bus stop during a very rainy day. Very interesting and it's heartening to see at least one person who is so far resisting the toxic racism in the South during this time period. And this is one of the few times when racism worked in the favor of the POC. That's what you call a good time to be kicked off the bus. 🙁

I don't know if all the Puffin paperbacks have illustrations, since I've been either listening to the audiobooks or reading on ebook, but this illustrations here were very well done. One of them was a little spoilery and should have been placed a page or two later than it was but they still added some nice visuals to the story.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is short and appears to be aimed at the elementary age reader ( with illustrations and all), but the intensity of the plot, the complex moral issues addressed, and the first person narrative in Southern dialect would make it hard for younger readers to persist with it, and it might be too much for a pre-6th grade audience to process. I liked it rather better than the Logan "saga" books because it captured the essence of discrimination and prejudice so precisely.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent novella in the Logan Saga by Mildred D. Taylor- this is the only story not told by someone in the Logan family, instead it is told by white ten-year-old Jeremy Simms. Set in the early 1930s during a wet winter in Mississippi, Jeremy, his father and older brothers are killing time at the local general store and witness discrimination when the bus to Jackson forces blacks off in favor of white riders. The Logan's grandmother Big Ma is made to get off, but her unjust treatment proves to be a Godsend when tragedy occurs a mile down the road on the bridge ahead. An unflinching look at racism with outstanding illustrations by Max Ginsburg. Best for an audience of older youth.

[Raquel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mildred Taylor sure has a flair for making bad things happen to her characters.

[Michelle Nigro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mississippi Bridge is a part of a series written by Mildred Taylor. The premier book of this series is Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. The main characters are the Logan family; a black family growing up in Mississippi during the Great Depression. This book is somewhat of a short vignette in the entire series, and unlike the other books, this book is told from the point of view of Jeremy Simms. Jeremy is an adolescent white boy who is a friend of the Logan children. Jeremy presents an intriguing character. From the other books we know that Jeremy's father is a part of, or most likely a leader to, the Ku Klux Klan in their small town. His son is the antithesis of him. Jeremy feels empathy for the black people and seems to have no color boundaries in his friendships.

Many of the white people of this book regularly call the black characters, "Nigger" or "Boy." Mildred Taylor pulls no punches as she depicts the racist south of the 30s. Event though this is a children's chapter book, she honestly portrays the prejudice, hate and racial injustice just as it was. The literal bridge in this book is rickety, and eventually leads to the death of many white people on a bus ride. The black people on this bus are kicked off so that more white people can ride to the neighboring town. It is the complete irony that the bus crashes through the rickety railing of the bridge. Those who had been kicked off had their lives spared. The bus is a metaphor for the racial hatred of the time. Racial hatred may hurt and harm the objects of the hatred, but it also kills those who practice the hate. It takes the lives of many innocent people of every color. The river that rages under the rickety bridge is called the Rosa Lee. I can't help but make a connection to Rosa Parks, who allowed her famous bus ride to fuel protests and boycotts. The rickety bridge is a metaphor for the misleading and poorly constructed practices of racial hatred and oppression. It's a bridge that won't hold the weight of those that seek to travel upon it, and it will not lead to a better or desired future for anyone.

My only complaint of this book is its ending. The book seems to end abruptly and without closure as Jeremy and a black man who had been kicked off the bus work at the site of the crash all day. We know of two direct victims and come to understand all on the bus have perished, but the reader is given little closure on this story. There is no fairy tale ending, just as there is no dreamlike end to racism. The book lacks closure for the reader, just as there has yet to be closure on the hatred portrayed in this book. For me, the unsatisfying ending reminded me that we are not done fighting. Though we have come a long way from the Mississippi of the 1930s, we have so far to go.

We must seek to not just "see" each other, instead we must seek to "be" each other.

[Ramanda Flannery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a little white boy who talks about how black people were treated in his time. He sat on the steps of the general store in his town and watched the bus come through to pick up passengers from his town. There were a lot of people traveling on this particular day, two white family and three black familes. There was only room for two families so the black people had to get off the bus. The black people were upset but didn't say anything. He decided to go talk to one of the black people who had to get off the bus and as he wsa running to catch up with them, the bus came flying by. The next thing he knoew the bus was making a horrible racket on the bridge and when he got close enough he found that the bus had runn off the bridge into the raging river beneath it. He saw one of the black men who had been forced off the bus and ran to him. The black man headed down the embankment and hollered up to the little boy to run for help. He ran back to the general store to get help, but by the time they got there everyone had drown and the black man said something like the Lord works in mysterious ways.
I think this was a sad story, but there was a lot of truth to it about how black people were treated back then. This is a good book to use when teaching a lesson on black history to show students how things were back then.

[Char Hight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal Thoughts:

I thought this was an overall good book and an easy read. The plot takes place a little after the Great Depression in the 1930s in rural Mississippi. The book is relatively short with only 62 pages making it a good beginner/transitional chapter book. One downfall of the book is that it is not set up with parts or chapters so it may be difficult finding a stopping point to resume at a later time. The dialect that the characters have is a little difficult to read. I found myself reading a few sentences twice to comprehend what they were saying. If used as a read a loud the teacher should be sure to look up the pronunciation of some words ahead of time. This book does include some words that we do not use today so it should be filtered or reserved for more mature children.

Classroom use:

Recommended grades: 4-6
Explore topics including but not limited to:
Discrimination/Racism
Great Depression
Segregation
Mississippi/Mississippi Bridge
Cause and Consequences decisons

[Jessica Vaughn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mississippi Bridge tells the story of Jeremy on a seemingly normal day as he experiences a great tragedy in his town firsthand. This piece of historical fiction introduces the reader to a multitude of characters with differing viewpoints all experiencing this tragedy as well as the ongoing racism and segregation that was prevalent during this time. This book does a wonderful job of taking us back in time and crafting these characters, however the built up suspense that it created felt cut off due to the abrupt ending. It felt as if this book should have brought together a more complete resolution, however, it did not. Other than that, this book did a good job of setting up the suspense to the big disaster that ended the book. I would recommend this to any student wanting to test out historical fiction as it hit all the notes of a good historical fiction novel without being too long. In the classroom, I would use this to show the importance of setting the scene in your story as well as the importance of side characters.

[Shannon Brasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mississippi Bridge looks at racial inequality in the south (Mississippi) in the time after the Great Depression and before the Civil Rights Movement. Jeremy comes from a family who are very prejudice towards African Americans, however somehow despite his upbringing and the culture of the time he is able to see those of color as being the same as himself. The story takes place entirely within an hour or so where Jeremy witnesses several occasions of racial prejudice and then a tragic accident. This book really tugged at my heart and I felt like I was right there with Jeremy, witnessing this shameful time in American History. The book is very well written with vivid details and uses language similar to what would have been used at that period in history which for younger readers may take a little getting used to or require rereading more than once. This would be a great book for older elementary students to read to learn about racism in the southern United States.

[Gabriella · Rating 5 out of 5]

***NOTE: As part of our 2020 reading challenges, my mom and I are revisiting the old works of her favorite YA author, Mildred D. Taylor, and will soon get to read All the Days Past, All the Days to Come for the very first time.***

Touching story, and I enjoyed the audiobook narrator (he was clearly older than the 10-year old protagonist, but didn't try to mimic a boyish voice, the way I've heard other narrators do.)

After reading about Jeremy Simms in passing in the other Logan family stories, it was nice to hear a tale from his perspective. He is a compelling character that I don't remember much of from years ago, so I'll be interested to see if he sticks around in the coming books in the series.

[Hana · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is realistic fiction about the history of black people in Mississippi during the 1930’s who were treated differently than the white people. Life was painful for many African Americans in the great depression time. For example, if the black people want to ride the bus they have to sit in the back. The book shows how the white people have more power while the black are mistreated.

The main characters in this story are Jeremy Simms, Josias, and Stacey, Cassie, Christopher-John, and Little-Man. Josias is taking the bus to his new job. The bus man kicks him out of the bus on a rainy day to make room for some white people. Then the bus went on a bridge and it went in the water of the Rosa Lee River. Josias saved a little white girl and her mother. This is such a wonderful true story and appropriate when explaining racism and segregation to children. I highly recommend this book.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeremy Simms is a white boy who wants to befriend the blacks despite his father's prejudices. One day he observes the blacks being pushed off a bus to make room for more whites. When the bus leaves it crashes through a rotten bridge and into a swollen creek from the winter rains.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novella and it works. It is one incident and over but it hits a powerful punch. It involves the Logan family but is told from the point of view of their White would be friend, Jeremy. He is age 10 here and although he gets that Whites and Blacks are not supposed to be friends in the South, he doesn’t accept it. People are lining up for the weekly bus and the Blacks have to get off when it is full and more Whites want on. Then the bus goes over the bridge and catastrophe happens. You are left to wonder about things. What happens to the Black who pleaded to stay on the bus and was thrown off? One can see why ignorant people would claim it to be divine retribution. But what about the cute girl and her grandma who were innocent of wrongdoing? Etc. Now to get the next book in the series! Recommended to 4th graders primarily and those reading the series. Put on display in Jan/Feb for Martin Luther King Day and Black history month.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another one of the short novellas. This one stands out as being from the point of view of Jeremy. It’s an interesting choice Taylor makes, and adding to the richness of the overall stories she’s telling- if Roll of Thunder, Here My Cry was Cassie learning about “the way things are” in the Jim Crow South, Mississippi Bridge is another angle, as Jeremy tries to find his place as a white boy who just wants to be friendly with everyone and doesn’t quite understand why things are the way they are.

[Karley DuBar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mississippi Bridge is set in the rural 1930s in Mississippi, and all of the events told happen it one short day. It starts off by saying that it had been raining that day, and in fact it had been raining for weeks. All of the roads were slopped up and the ceilings were swollen up and leaking inside. About once a week the bus would come down from Jackson, make a stop in front of the general store to pick up people, then it would head West over the bridge that crossed creek called the Rosa Lee. This particular day Cassie Logan and her brothers are seeing their grandmother off on a trip, and Josias Williams is getting on to follow up on a job. But since this is the 1930s in Mississippi, when several more white passengers show up when the bus is almost ready to leave, the driver orders the black passengers off the bus and actually kicks Josias out of the door. When the bus takes off and heads for the bridge something terrible happens, and the bridge breaks, and they go head first into the water. Even after being talked to and treated so poorly, one particular person takes off to try and help as many people as possible.

[asiya | アセヤ (free palestine) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, now that was a crazy story!!! The dark karma was so sad and so intriguing. I loved how this book was all told through the perspective of one of my favorite characters from the series: Jeremy Simms.

[ara]

Happy to see yts die

[Maya B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short and I needed more substance

[Lynn Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not saying they deserved it, but I also do believe in karma.

This is set during the Great depression in 1930s racist Mississippi so expect a lot of racist rhetoric.

[Karna Bosman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Logan Family experience from the perspective of Jeremy Simms a white boy who sympathizes with and wants to be a friend. A short story really.

[Matthew Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't actually set out to read this series. My kids were assigned Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and left it lying around the house. I picked it up and read it before realizing it was in the middle of a series, and of course that won't do at all. The books are mostly short, though, so not a particularly onerous commitment.

Obviously, given the typical audience, this is a very straightforward read. It is more of a vignette than a complete story arc, and that is perfectly suitable. The depiction of the entrenched racism of the south is starkly and simply presented; I can imagine it shocking and upsetting a younger reader who is unfamiliar with the casual inhumanity and cruelty that typified the era.

[Valerie Custeau · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read purely for research 😵‍💫

[Hayden Hamlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

i picked 4 stars because it goes good with the civil rights and it has a very good story and if you are wanting to learn more about the civil rights i recommend this book

[Whitney Church · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose to read this realistic fiction because I read several of Mildred D. Taylor's books. I was excited to get another glimpse at the Logan family. This book was written from the perspective of a white child who interacts with the children. I enjoyed the book but was disappointed with the ending. I wish the author had written more, the story ended in the midst of a major event. As a reader I was left wanting to know more.

This story would be good for intermediate readers. It could easily be included in a unit on prejudices. Another bonus is that it is fairly short so students won't be overwhelmed, some of her other books are rather lengthy. This book could be used to get students interested in the story of the Logan family and motivate them to read her other novels.

[Mrs. Kris's Class · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a Boy Named Jeramy, he is white. Back then white people were mean to Black people, that was around when we still had SLAVERY:( Jeramy wants to be friends with the Logan Family, the are black. But that does not STOP him from following them. I can not give away the BIG SUPRISE, so you'll just have to read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By sofia ********************************************************************************************************
cool book isabella coslik's reveiw
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[Nykele Crandall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a short book but I loved it. It connected to Roll of Thunder and made me realize how one good author can transport us to the times of inequality and pain. Taylor did a fantastic job of making us see the problems and hurt that were caused by a refusal to be kind and treat others with respect. In this book, Jeremy retells the story of several black citizens who are forced off of a bus in order to make room for the white travelers. However, there is a tragedy when the bus goes into a raging river and all of the occupants die a horrible death.

[Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mississippi Bridge, by Mildred Taylor, takes place in Mississippi in the 1930's. The Logan family sees their grandmother off on a trip as she travels with the Josia family because their father has a new job. Because they are Black, they are told to get off the bus when there is not enough room on the bus because more white passengers board. After they get off, the bus crashes off the bridge into the water and they help the people in the water. The book deals with racism and segregation. it shows white priority and how certain people deal with it differently.

[Diana (Bever) Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read. Much shorter than "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry." I'm a sucker for books set in the days of post-slavery segregation. I guess I should be more specific: 1950s era. Unfortunately, a lot of what's in these books by Mildred Taylor is still going on today. In this case, many of the characters are the same and the action centers around the store, the bus, and the bridge. It's quick, but it's worth your time to read.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a sad book I think that you shouldn't read this until you have read "ROLL OF THUNDER HEAR MY CRY" because this is the sequale and you need to read the first one before you read this because you won't know about the characters and who they are it would be confussing also this is an easy book and it is only about 50-70 pages it is really an easy read.

[Juan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a short book about racism in the United States. It was very boring to read and had barely any action in it. The climax of the story was when the bus fell into the Mississippi River. Which is ironic because an old black lady was kick off the bus because there was not enough space. The bus with mostly white people sunk but luckily black people managed to save them from drowning.