Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

I think this book would be wonderful to read before or after Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Both novels deal with racial inequality in the South during the 1930s and each is from the perspective of a coming-of-age girl. Cassie, the protagonist of Taylor's novel, is African American while Lee's main character Scout is white. I think it would be interesting to see the racial inequalities that exist in both stories yet how the two different protagonists bring different experiences and background to the situations. However, the book is perfectly capable of standing alone in a middle school English curriculum. It is a compelling story that shows students the racism and violence African Americans endured during the 1930s.

Edited Summary Courtesy of http://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/roll-thunder-hear-my-cry
Nightriders, arson, lynching--in the course of one turbulent year, 9-year-old Cassie Logan's family is traumatized by inequality and racism in their small Mississippi town. Yet the novel effectively conveys, even in the midst of violence and hatred, the importance of family loyalty, as well as pride in the face of adversity.  It's this loyalty, love, and intense pride that enable the Logans to endure in the racist culture of 1930s Mississippi. ROLL OF THUNDER, HEAR MY CRY is the best kind of historical fiction, in which powerful lessons from the past are encased in such an absorbing story with such compelling characters that children don't feel like they're "studying" history at all.

Taylor, Mildred D. (1976). Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. New York: Puffin Books. 276 pp. ISBN: 0-590-98207-9.