A context-offering complement to Bridges’ own books for children.
Magoon writes a portrait of young Ruby Bridges in the latest of the 13-part She Persisted series.
Readers meet the child Ruby Bridges as a hard worker, laboring with her family in Tylertown, Mississippi. They learn that despite that hard work, Bridges and her family remained in poverty due to pervasive injustice against Black Americans. Jim Crow segregation is rather simplistically summed up: “The worst part was the schools, water fountains, and seating areas for Black people were not as nice as the ones for white people.” Though Ruby “was happy in her all-Black world,” her parents, who could not read nor write, wanted Ruby to have an opportunity to receive an education, so they moved from the safety of the family farm to New Orleans. The author includes the continued injustice confronting the child in the form of a test designed to be too hard for Black students to pass. Despite this, Ruby was one of six Black students to gain admittance to the all-White William Frantz Elementary School. At 6, she single-handedly desegregated it. Flint’s delicate grayscale illustrations depict several scenes from Bridges’ heroic journey. Magoon describes the harsh reception meeting the first grader with great sensitivity. The story ends happily, with some positive changes occurring in Bridges’ second grade year, the beginning of an ongoing legacy still relevant today. Bridges’ voice, quoted from various sources, gives readers access to her own perspective.
A context-offering complement to Bridges’ own books for children. (Biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11586-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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