• Willie Morris
• Roane Fleming Byrnes
• Mildred D. Taylor
• Kiese Laymon
• Gloria J. McEwen Burgess
• Angie Thomas
• Michael W. Waters and Nicole Tadgell
• Kabir Blake Gupta
• Jean-Henri Fabre
• Sarah Frances Hardy
• Thelma T. Cullums

For years, Mississippi authors have produced bestselling and award-winning titles for young readers. Among the well-known works in this exhibit, you’ll also find some unique and hard-to-find gems.

Willie Morris and Roane Fleming Byrnes

Featured items, left to right:

• Good Old Boy and the Witch of Yazoo / Willie Morris. Yoknapatawpha Press (1989)
• Page insert for “The Witch of Yazoo,” hand-written by Morris
• “The Secret of the Wild Cherry Tree” / Roane Fleming Byrnes. Child Life Vol. 9, no. 7 (1930).

Featured on the top shelf is a page insert for The Witch of Yazoo City, hand-written by Willie Morris, alongside a short story published in 1930 by Roane Fleming Byrnes in Child Life. Byrnes also published in St. Nicholas, an international children’s magazine that featured such authors as Louisa May Alcott (Little Women), Mark Twain (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), and Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Books).

Mildred D. Taylor, Kiese Laymon, Gloria J. McEwen Burgess, Angie Thomas, Virginia Fairfax

Featured items, left to right:

• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry / Mildred D. Taylor. Phyllis Fogelman (2001).
• Long Division / Kiese Laymon. Scribner (2021).
• Two copies of Pass it On / Gloria J. McEwen Burgess. Two Sylvias Press (2018). One copy is open, the other closed.
• Concrete Rose / Angie Thomas. Balzer + Bray (2021).
• The Curious Quest / Virginia Fairfax. A. L. Burt Co. (1934)

On the center shelf sits Mississippi author Gloria J. McEwen Burgess’s story of her father’s life, a picture book that encourages readers to “pass it on,” just as Burgess’s father did. Also featured is Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, which won a Newbery Medal and was a National Book Award finalist.

Michael Walters, Kabir and Arjun Gupta, Thelma T. Collums, Matthew Clark Smith, Sarah Frances Hardy

Featured items, left to right:

• Liberty’s Civil Rights Road Trip / Michael W. Walters, Nicole Tadgell. Flyaway Books (2021).
• Children of the Sun: A Child’s Journey Through Our Solar System / Kabir Blake Gupta, Arjun Neil Gupta. Lulu.com (2018)
• Unpublished short story by Thelma T. Collums
• Small Wonders: Jean-Henri Fabre and his world of insects / Matthew Clark Smith, Giuliano Ferri. Two Lions (2015).
• Dress Me / Sarah Frances Hardy. Sky Pony Press (2015).