Mayo Cornelius Higgins, a thirteen-year-old-boy, lives in Kentucky on Sarah’s Mountain, named for his great-grandmother, an escaped slave. His family has lived there for generations, surrounded by nature and immersed in the unique culture of hill people. Mining companies are destroying MC’s beautiful mountain. They have strip-mined the top, leaving a pile of toxic sludge that threatens to slide down on the Higgins home. MC is worried for his family and hopes to leave, but his father will never abandon their ancestral home. During a three-day period, MC’s hopes and beliefs are challenged by two strangers who come to the mountain.

This extraordinary novel delves deep into the thoughts and emotions of MC with lyrical prose. It celebrates nature and explores the black experience of hill people, which is rarely written about.

African-American writer Virginia Hamilton wrote more than 35 books. M.C. Higgins, the Great, published in 1974, won the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and Boston-Globe Horn Book Award. Hamilton won numerous awards during her career including the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Award.”