*Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Will’s Race for Home is a classic coming-of-age story set during the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889.

*Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes. Little, Brown, 2025, 190 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 8-10

Recommended for: ages 8-14

Will Samuel’s father never smiles. Life is hard on the Texas plains, but it seemed as though any pleasure Father might have had in his wife or son dried up years ago, when he and Will’s Grandpa escaped from Louisiana, right after Emancipation.  Now a sharecropper’s meager portion is all Will’s family have to look forward to—until word comes of land opening up in Oklahoma, just north of the Red River. On April 22, 1889, there’s going to be a “land rush” for anyone who can get to the starting line with a good mount and race to stake a claim as soon as the starting gun goes off. In a flash, Father determines their future is Oklahoma. He and Will load a wagon with provisions and hitch up Belle, their faithful mule. Mama and Grandpa will stay behind until the men of the family locate their fresh start.

Will is excited for the adventure and hopeful for a better relationship with his father, though their journey is beset by weather, rough terrain, and the antagonism of some whites resentful of their efforts to better themselves. Fortunately—or not—they encounter an ally early in the journey: a cool, capable black man on a beautiful black horse, who calls himself Caesar. Not a gunfighter, which is Will’s first impression, but a former Union soldier. Though he has his own plans and ambitions, Caesar falls in with the Samuels, and Will quickly succumbs to hero-worship. But there’s something mysterious about Caesar—dangerous, even. Will he be more help, or  hindrance?

Will’s Race for Home is subtitled “A Western,” and it has classic western elements, such as the mysterious Shane-like figure of Caesar. It’s more a coming-of-age story about a boy growing to manhood under the harsh demands of the old west. Along the way, Will must make some very hard choices and face the worst of what he could become, but his family’s religious faith both pricks his conscience and guides it. His hard-won victory at the end is tinged with regret but also hope for a more promising future.

Bottom Line: An excellent historical novel with psychological depth.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Jewell Parker Rhodes is the author of Sugar, Towers Falling, and Black Brother, Black Brother.
• Resource: See our “Learning to Lead” book list.

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