The Road to Memphis, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Land, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry are among Taylor's past works. Her books have received numerous honors, including a Newbery Medal (for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry), four Coretta Scott King Awards, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. Her novel The Land won the L.A. Times Book Prize. The PEN Award for Children's Fiction and the Times Book Prize Taylor was named the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature's First Laureate in 2003.

Mildred Taylor grew up in Toledo, Ohio, after being born in Jackson, Mississippi. She spent two years in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia after graduating from the University of Toledo, and then spent the next year working and recruiting for the Peace Corps across the United States. She helped establish a Black Studies program at the University of Colorado School of Journalism and taught in it for two years. Taylor has worked at an international house and a community free school as a proofreader-editor and program coordinator.

She currently spends her time with her family, writing, and what she refers to as the family ranch in the Rocky Mountains' foothills.