Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes - ADVISABLE

Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes, 208 pages. Little Brown, 2025. $18

Content: PG (mild violence, some dead mentioned)

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS - ADVISABLE

APPEALS TO: SEVERAL

12yo Will, his parents, and his paternal grandfather are barely eking out an existence as Black sharecroppers in Texas in 1889 - 25 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. When his father gets word of an open land rush in Oklahoma, WIll convinces his father to take him along as he will try to stake a 100 acre claim for their Black family where they can work for their own futures. Along the way they will come up against the prejudices and anger still harbored by those who fought for the Confederacy, but also find some kindness. Also, the dangers of trail don’t only come in human form.

I love Rhodes’s look at another dimension of US history, and Black history in particular. A great classroom read aloud choice for elementary schools. If you have any kids who like reading Westerns, point them here! There are so many other details that Rhodes exposits so well - I believe she could easily write a 10 book series a la Louis L’amour touching on Black history in the West. I love that the book is just at 200 pages - room for a story, but Rhodes had to keep the writing tight and interesting.

Cindy, Middle School Librarian, MLS