''Daddy Was a Number Runner'' is the first novel by

Louise Meriwether Louise Meriwether (born May 8, 1923) is an American novelist, essayist, journalist and activist, as well as a writer of biographies of historically important African Americans for children. She is best known for her first novel, '' Daddy Was a N ...

. It was published by

Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...

, with a foreword by

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer. He garnered acclaim across various media, including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'', was published in 1953; ...

, in 1970, and is now considered a modern classic. It depicts a poor black family in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harl ...

during the Great Depression in the first half of the 20th century, as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

girl who has one brother who wants to be a chemist and another who is a gang member.

Reception

Paule Marshall Paule Marshall (April 9, 1929 – August 12, 2019) was an American writer, best known for her 1959 debut novel ''Brown Girl, Brownstones''. In 1992, at the age of 63, Marshall was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship grant. Life and career Marshall wa ...

said of the book:

tsgreatest achievement lies in the sense of black life that it conveys: vitality and force behind the despair. It celebrates the positive values behind the black experience: the tenderness and love that often lie underneath the abrasive surfaces of relationships … the humor that has long been an important part of the black survival kit, and the heroism of ordinary folk … a most important novel.Louise Meriwether page

African American Literature Book Club AALBC.com, the African American Literature Book Club, is a website dedicated to books A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum ...
.

It was an ''

Essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

'' Book Club Choice in December 2002.

Reception

References

Further reading