One other thought I just had, actually: Mildred Taylor wrote several other books for a much younger set than Roll is aimed at, and many of them are about the Logan family too. They're shorter, more cheerful, and in simpler language, and both the characters and the basic themes (racism in the Deep South a generation or so after the Civil War) are the same. It sounds like Charlie would find them much more comprehensible. One is The Well - I forget what the others are called, but Amazon will say. (The ones for older readers are Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Road to Memphis, and The Land, and those would present the same problems as Roll. Any others that she's written about the Logans are for younger readers.) Maybe Charlie's teacher would compromise and let him read one of those, either standalone or along with a summary of Roll of Thunder?
no subject
One other thought I just had, actually: Mildred Taylor wrote several other books for a much younger set than Roll is aimed at, and many of them are about the Logan family too. They're shorter, more cheerful, and in simpler language, and both the characters and the basic themes (racism in the Deep South a generation or so after the Civil War) are the same. It sounds like Charlie would find them much more comprehensible. One is The Well - I forget what the others are called, but Amazon will say. (The ones for older readers are Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Road to Memphis, and The Land, and those would present the same problems as Roll. Any others that she's written about the Logans are for younger readers.) Maybe Charlie's teacher would compromise and let him read one of those, either standalone or along with a summary of Roll of Thunder?