[Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry] presents injustice and several ways of dealing with it…. There is little relief from the tension of frightening events, and the reader is able to identify with Cassie's frustration and anger as she experiences great unfairness and witnesses crimes against Black people. The events and settings of the powerful novel are presented with such verisimilitude and the characters are so carefully drawn that one might assume the book to be autobiographical, if the author were not so young.

Sally Holmes Holtze, "Stories for Intermediate Readers: 'Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry'," in The Horn Book Magazine (copyright © 1976 by the Horn Book, Inc., Boston), Vol. LII, No. 6, December, 1976, p. 627.