Through my eyes

 
Through my eyes
by Ruby Bridges
c 1999, 63 p.
Reading Level 5+
Interest Level: Grades 3-6

At 6 years old in 1960, Ruby Bridges was thrust into the spotlight when she became the first black child to be integrated into a white school. Surrounded by federal marshals, Ruby and her mother had to walk past mobs of angry protesters who were shouting racial slurs at her as she entered the school. On her very first day, Ruby sat in the office and witnessed angry white parents removing their children from school because of Ruby’s presence. The remainder of the book details Ruby’s first year at William Frantz School in Louisiana.

This book gives us not only Ruby’s history, but also a good understanding of the politics of that time and climate in which all of this was occurring. Background is given into the reasons for integration along with the people and groups fighting for it. We also learn about the segregationists’ and groups like the Cheerleaders and Ku Klux Klan who were part of that movement.

Quotes on the bottom of nearly every page coupled with vivid sepia toned photographs set the stage visually and the tone of this book is very like that of a child’s making this memoir a moving read. This book would be good for kids interested in the Civil Rights Movement. The material contained makes it useful for reports, but that use is limited because there is no index.