By: Robert Coles
Publisher: Scholastic
Reading Level: 4-6 years
Number of Pages: 26
Genre: Informational
Summary: The Story of Ruby Bridges is the true story of a six-year old girl named Ruby Bridges. She is chosen to be the first African-American integrated into a New Orleans elementary school. She walks to school everyday with the U.S. Marshals because there is always a big crowd of angry white protesters outside her school that chant and yell mean things to her everyday. She is the only child that attends school at this time and the only child in her class. Her teacher tries to get information from her about how she feels about all the mean people outside, but Ruby never really had anything bad or mean to say about them. The book ends with Ruby walking to school when she suddenly stops in the middle of the crowd. The Marshals are worried and so is her teacher who watches from the window. When Ruby enters the classroom, her teacher asked what the problem was. And Ruby told her that she had forgotten to say her prayer that morning and stopped to say her routine prayer. Her prayer reads: "Please, God, try to forgive those people. Because even if they say those bad things, they don't know what they're doing. So you could forgive them, just like You did those folks a long time ago when they said terrible things about You."
Reaction: I cannot believe the faith and courage this little girl had to go through and survive all this. I really enjoyed reading it and looking at the illustrations, the emotional, heart-wrenching illustrations.
Recommendation: I would recommend this book to younger audiences to help teach the importance of faith and courage. And to help keep the memories of the civil rights movement alive as well.
Problems: The only problems in this book would be the yelling and meanness of the mob outside the school.
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