Daddy Was a Number Runner

This modern classic is “a tough, tender, bitter novel of a black girl struggling towards womanhood” in 1930s Harlem—with a foreword by James Baldwin ( Publishers Weekly ).   Depression-era Harlem is home for twelve-year-old Francie Coffin and her family, and it’s both a place of refuge and the source of untold dangers for her and her poor, working class family. The beloved “daddy” of the title indeed becomes a number runner when he is unable to find legal work, and while one of Francie’s br