Let the Circle Be Unbroken

Let the Circle Be Unbroken is a historical novel for young readers by the American writer Mildred D. Taylor, published in 1981. It is the sequel to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and part of her sequence about the Logan family.

The book is set in Mississippi in 1935, during the Great Depression, and returns to the Logan family as they try to hold on to their land. Several pressures arrive at once: a trial that exposes how little the courts will do for a black defendant, the loss of work when the cotton prices fall, and the ordinary humiliations that come with buying, borrowing or speaking to the wrong person. Taylor tells it from the point of view of Cassie Logan, so the reader sees the adults making decisions about what to risk without being able to explain all of it to a child. The family's survival depends on knowing which fights to have and which to avoid, and the book is about the working-out of that knowledge between one generation and the next.

Taylor drew on her own family's history in Mississippi for the series, and the Logan books run across several decades with the same characters at different ages.