<< 1 >>
Rating: Summary: Important, must read! Review: Bridges relates a moving account of her first grade year on the front lines of America's battle for civil rights. This is an important and beautiful story of courage and faith. It should be shared in every family.
Rating: Summary: Freedom Review: Freedom Though my eyes By Ruby Bridges This book is about a true story of a pivotal event in history as Ruby Bridges saw it unfold around her. It is also about a black six year old girl. An exciting/interesting part is when Ruby Bridges talks at the end of the book and says "I know that experience comes to us for a purpose, and if we follow the guidance of the sprit with us, we will proubly find that the purpose is a good one." If you like reading about nonfiction books then this is the book for you. When I read this book I always give it a thumbs up!
Rating: Summary: History comes alive through the eyes of a child Review: How does it feel to be the first to lead the way to new beginnings in history? 6-year-old Ruby Bridges was the first black child to enroll in a white elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana. On November 14, 1960 Ruby walked into the school with her mother and four U.S. Marshals. The other families pulled their white children out of the school. So Ruby was left alone with her teacher, Mrs. Henry, inside their big classroom. This was the beginning of school integration. How must this little first grader feel with so many adults yelling horrible things at her? One woman even threatened to poison her. People held a small coffin with a black doll inside to scare her. People threatened her neighborhood � and her father lost his job. This is brave little Ruby�s astounding story. (p. 20) When we left school that first day, the crowd outside was even bigger and louder than it had been in the morning. I guess the police couldn�t keep them behind the barricades. It seemed to take us a long time to get to the marshals� car. Groups of high school boys, joining the protestors, paraded up and down the street and sang new verses to old hymns. Their favorite was �Battle Hymn of the Republic,� in which they changed the chorus to �Glory, glory, segregation, the South will rise again.� Many of the boys carried signs and said awful things, but most of all I remember seeing a black doll in a coffin, which frightened me more than anything else. After the first day, I was glad to get home. That afternoon, I taught a friend the chant I had learned: �Two, four, six, eight, we don�t want to integrate.� My friend and I didn�t know what the words meant, but we would jump rope to it every day after school. Would the chaos ever end? Would the other children return to school?
Rating: Summary: History comes alive through the eyes of a child Review: How does it feel to be the first to lead the way to new beginnings in history? 6-year-old Ruby Bridges was the first black child to enroll in a white elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana. On November 14, 1960 Ruby walked into the school with her mother and four U.S. Marshals. The other families pulled their white children out of the school. So Ruby was left alone with her teacher, Mrs. Henry, inside their big classroom. This was the beginning of school integration. How must this little first grader feel with so many adults yelling horrible things at her? One woman even threatened to poison her. People held a small coffin with a black doll inside to scare her. People threatened her neighborhood ' and her father lost his job. This is brave little Ruby's astounding story. (p. 20) When we left school that first day, the crowd outside was even bigger and louder than it had been in the morning. I guess the police couldn't keep them behind the barricades. It seemed to take us a long time to get to the marshals' car. Groups of high school boys, joining the protestors, paraded up and down the street and sang new verses to old hymns. Their favorite was 'Battle Hymn of the Republic,' in which they changed the chorus to 'Glory, glory, segregation, the South will rise again.' Many of the boys carried signs and said awful things, but most of all I remember seeing a black doll in a coffin, which frightened me more than anything else. After the first day, I was glad to get home. That afternoon, I taught a friend the chant I had learned: 'Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate.' My friend and I didn't know what the words meant, but we would jump rope to it every day after school. Would the chaos ever end? Would the other children return to school?
Rating: Summary: Read it for the discussion it provokes Review: I began reading this book out loud to my 10-year-old because I recognized it as a book that he would not pick up on his own. It was the perfect thing to do because there were all sorts of terms like "segregation" and "racism" that he needed me to explain. But more importantly, he had all sorts of comments and questions about the ignorance and hatred depicted in this true that were worthy of discussion . . . some of which were predictable, some were not. He ended up finishing the book on his own because it is such an engaging story.
Rating: Summary: Freedom Review: I'd not read such a well-written book about the racism of the 60s for children, until now. Prefaced by Harry Belafonte, the book is remarkable on a number of levels. Off the bat, it is written particularly well for small children. The style is clear and concise without being patronizing. Large full pictures of the people and events of the time are placed on each and every page. While these photographs are effective, they are not violent or frightening in a visceral way. The pictures of racists yelling at Ruby and other black children are images that stand on their own. At the bottom of most pages are quotes from some of the major players of the time. A quote from Ruby's mother explains that she was unaware that Ruby would be the only black child attending her school. Another notes that standardized tests given to black children were biased in favor of white middle-class children with the hopes of failing the black. The story has a clear linear feel to it and children reading it will recognize the characters. Ruby herself is a remarkable child, her photographs becoming the most powerful in the book. It is made clear to the reader that Ruby was just like any other child you might meet. This thought is expressed more fully in the back, where a Ruby B. jump-rope rhyme has been written. The repeated phrase "Ruby B., Ruby B., You were a little girl just like me", drills the thought home. All in all, the book is wonderful. I recommend it to any parent, teacher, or librarian struggling to explain the civil rights movement to their kids.
Rating: Summary: THE best book on Civil Rights for small children Review: I'd not read such a well-written book about the racism of the 60s for children, until now. Prefaced by Harry Belafonte, the book is remarkable on a number of levels. Off the bat, it is written particularly well for small children. The style is clear and concise without being patronizing. Large full pictures of the people and events of the time are placed on each and every page. While these photographs are effective, they are not violent or frightening in a visceral way. The pictures of racists yelling at Ruby and other black children are images that stand on their own. At the bottom of most pages are quotes from some of the major players of the time. A quote from Ruby's mother explains that she was unaware that Ruby would be the only black child attending her school. Another notes that standardized tests given to black children were biased in favor of white middle-class children with the hopes of failing the black. The story has a clear linear feel to it and children reading it will recognize the characters. Ruby herself is a remarkable child, her photographs becoming the most powerful in the book. It is made clear to the reader that Ruby was just like any other child you might meet. This thought is expressed more fully in the back, where a Ruby B. jump-rope rhyme has been written. The repeated phrase "Ruby B., Ruby B., You were a little girl just like me", drills the thought home. All in all, the book is wonderful. I recommend it to any parent, teacher, or librarian struggling to explain the civil rights movement to their kids.
Rating: Summary: Courage Review: Parents always try to protect their children from the worst the world has to offer, and Ruby Bridges' parents did too. An African-American child in the deep South, she was nevertheless unaware of the hatred swirling around her, either in Tylertown Mississippi, where she was born in 1954, or in New Orleans, where her family moved in 1958. Her grandparents were all Mississippi sharecroppers, renting the land they worked with a portion of the cotton and other crops they grew, and struggling to live off the rest. But Ruby spent sheltered summers visiting her grandparents' farms, where she helped to pick and can the beans, cucumbers and other vegetables they grew on two acres reserved to feed the extended family. And at home in New Orleans, her safe and comfortable world of family, jacks, jump rope, tree-climbing, softball--and deep respect for God and her parents--existed entirely on her family's block, only one block away from a white neighborhood. Then in the summer of 1960, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) contacted Ruby's parents. The Federal court planned to force two white New Orleans schools to admit African-American children. Ruby was one of only a handful of black children who had been tested for admission to these schools, and passed. She was to attend the William Frantz Public School. Her father, Abon Bridges, was opposed to her going; he had fought in a segregated unit in the Korean War, and believed nothing would ever change. Her mother, Lucille, thought otherwise and convinced him to take the risk. Ruby started the year in her old school while Louisiana Governor Jimmie H. Davis led legislators in Baton Rouge in a fight to preserve segregation. They passed 28 new anti-integration laws and attempted to seize the public school system. Meanwhile Federal District Court Judge J. Skelly Wright upheld Federal laws requiring equal opportunity. Ruby was the only black child sent to William Frantz Public School, however. Another three students were to go to McDonough. The morning that Federal Marshals arrived to take Ruby to her new school, she only knew only that she was to start a new school, and was not afraid. The policemen at the school door made her think this was an important place. "It must be college," she thought. She sat in the principal's office with her mother all day, and became frightened only when, as she left the school, she saw the crowds of white anti-integration protestors. The next day, Ruby joined a class with a white teacher named Barbara Henry, whose kindness rose above the fray. No other children joined the class, and within a few days, Ruby was going to school alone with the Marshals; her mother had to return to work. Then the Rev. Lloyd Foreman broke ranks with the white boycotts and sent his daughter Pam to school. The Ku Klux clan began burning crosses in black neighborhoods to frighten the people into giving up their fight for equality. The tension in New Orleans grew each day. But Ruby quickly became a symbol of freedom, appearing in John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley and a Norman Rockwell painting than ran in Look Magazine. When Abon Bridges lost his job at a local filling station for sending Ruby to a white school, the family began to receive gifts and money from all over the U.S. Even former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to Ruby. Some children might cower in fear after such experiences, refuse to go on. Ruby persevered, however, as did her upright family. As a child, she believed that prayer could get her through anything. And it accomplished a great deal. While she was unable to attend college, Ruby married and raised four sons. Over another 16 pages, Ruby Bridges tells about her subsequent experiences, her contributions and efforts, what she has learned and given. This historic story of courage and wisdom is worth its weight in gold for the hope it offers readers of all ages. Alyssa A. Lappen
Rating: Summary: Great book Review: This book was great; it was about Ruby Briggs experience being one of the first colored children to integrate the elementary schools in the south. It gives a wonderful perspective about how this young girl viewed racism. It also shows the reader that she did not completely understand why some many people were mean to her. It is an extreme eye opener to how strong racism was in the south, at one point it talks about grown women throwing and yelling at Ruby.
Rating: Summary: A great book Review: This book was great; it was about Ruby Briggs experience being one of the first colored children to integrate the elementary schools in the south. It gives a wonderful perspective about how this young girl viewed racism. It also shows the reader that she did not completely understand why some many people were mean to her. It is an extreme eye opener to how strong racism was in the south, at one point it talks about grown women throwing and yelling at Ruby.
<< 1 >>
|