Will’s Race for Home
With her latest novel, Jewell Parker Rhodes creates a heartwarming, heart-wrenching Western starring a wonderful young Black hero for readers ages 8 to 12. Frequent illustrations enrich the fast-moving text. Rhodes, who has received many accolades, including Coretta Scott King, Jane Addams, and Octavia E. Butler honors, sets her story against the background of the Oklahoma Land Rush but focuses on a little-known aspect of that historical event: Black families also raced for a piece of land and a home.
More than twenty years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Will’s family, which includes Grandpa, Ma, and Pa, are hard-working sharecroppers who see little future for themselves in the cotton fields of Texas. Then Pa brings home a proclamation describing the land rush, set for April 22, 1889. To participate, Pa and Will must travel by wagon all the way to Oklahoma. At the beginning of the trip, Pa is grim and silent, and Will, who narrates, is an appealing, observant boy. The third member of the party is Will’s best friend, Belle, a tough and charming mule. It’s a hard trip, almost impossible. They must withstand racism, violence, crime, poverty, and geography. But along the way they acquire two great companions, a Black Civil War veteran named Caesar and his magnificent horse, Midnight.
Will they make it to Oklahoma? Will they win the race? Will they find a home? Rhodes skillfully builds the suspense as she simultaneously shows the relationship between Will and Pa develop and warm. By the end of this dramatic story, which would translate well to the screen, Will has left boyhood behind and has grown into a brave, heroic young man.
