M.C. Higgins, the Great

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689830742 ISBN 13: 9780689830747

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1999

Discover this masterpiece from Virginia Hamilton that was the first book to win the Newberry, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.

Mayo Cornelius Higgins sits on his gleaming, forty-foot steel pole, towering over his home on Sarah’s Mountain. Stretched before him are rolling hills and shady valleys. But behind him lie the wounds of strip mining, including a mountain of rubble that may one day fall and bury his home.

M.C. dreams of escape for himself and his family. And, one day, atop his pole, he thinks he sees it—two strangers are making their way toward Sarah’s Mountain. One has the ability to make M.C.’s mother famous. And the other has the kind of freedom that M.C. has never even considered.

Review:

From a perch on his 40-foot pole (a gift from his father for swimming across the Ohio River), M.C. likes to slide his hand over the rolling mountains, smooth out the sky, and fluff up the trees to the south of Sarah's Mountain. To the north, though, no amount of pretending can make the whine of bulldozers and deep gashes in the mountain disappear. Ever since M.C.'s great-grandmother Sarah came here as a runaway slave, Sarah's Mountain has been home to the Higgins family. But now their home is threatened by the strip-mining that has left a giant slag heap perched precariously above their house. Will the two strangers who appear in the hills help M.C. save his family?

Reissued in celebration of its 25th anniversary, M.C. Higgins the Great has a power that runs deeper than the coal seam snaking through M.C.'s mountain. The intensity of family bonds, the depth of rural superstition, and the grim tragedy of environmental destruction weave together in a story that is as complex as it is beautiful. Not surprisingly, Virginia Hamilton, who has won every major award given to authors, received the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for this excellent novel. (Ages 13 and older) --Emilie Coulter

About the Author:

The recipient of nearly every major award and honor in her field, including the 1992 Hans Christian Anderson Award, Virgina Hamilton was the first African-American woman to be awarded the Newbery Medal, for M.C. Higgins The Great. Renowned as a storyteller, anthologist and lecturer as well as a novelist, Ms. Hamilton makes her home in Yellow Springs, Ohio.