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Born in Jackson, Mississippi, on July 13th, Mildred Taylor grew up in Toledo, Ohio. She graduated from the University of Toledo and then spent two years in the Peace Corps teaching English and history in Ethiopia. After returning from the Peace Corps she worked for her master’s degree in journalism at the University of Colorado, where she also helped the Black Student Alliance develop a black studies program. She took a job in LA and then decided to go back to school to get a graduate degree in international training. During her childhood, she often listened to her family talk about their history, rich in experience and memories. Those memories welled up inside of her and she wrote Song of the Trees, which she entered in the Council on Interracial Books for Children competition, winning first prize in the African-American category. In 1977, Cassie and the Logans became the focus of her second book, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, which won the Newbery Medal that year. In 1990, Road to Memphis won a Coretta Scott King award. The Land, the story of Cassie’s grandfather, won the Coretta Scott King award in 2002. Today, Ms. Taylor lives in Colorado.
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