"Louis" is representative of Lester's lifelong interest in African-American history. He resolved in the late 1960s to write about some of the history young adults might be missing in their schooling and everyday reading; this first resulted in To Be a Slave (1968; see separate entry, Vol. 3), an account of day-to-day slavery that has since lost none of its pertinence for young adult readers. In Long Journey Home (1972), Lester presents several short stories that encompass the entire gamut of African-American experience from slavery to segregation. Long Journey Home is one of the most distinguished collections of short stories for young adults ever published, and "Louis" is one of them.