Mississippi Bridge by: Mildred D. Taylor - Multicultural Intermediate

Jeremy Simms, a weary 10-year-old Mississippi boy, hangs out on the village store porch. Jeremy, like most kids, is always complaining about how nothing is going on and nothing ever happens here, until one day when something did happen. The day when the bus to Jackson staggered off the bridge over a flooded creek in which Jeremy becomes a partaker. The author allows the readers to see the African American's through Jeremy's eyes (a Caucasian boy during the 1930's). I liked the way Taylor dealt with Jeremy's effort to understand racial discrimination. Jeremy does not share his father's view of African Americans (a typical Southerner's view in the 30's) and he is willing to disobey his father because he knew those beliefs were wrong. As a reader, you need to be aware that Taylor uses words and phrases that would have been said in the 30s down south. Some of the words she uses are shocking, but one needs to understand that it people once spoke like that; I like that Taylor used this language, it shows the reader how bad things really were.