Through My Eyes

With Robert Coles's 1995 picture book, The Story of Ruby Bridges, and a Disney television movie, readers may feel they already know all about Bridges, who in 1960 was the first black child to attend a New Orleans public elementary school. But the account she gives here is freshly riveting. With heartbreaking understatement, she gives voice to her six-year-old self. Escorted on her first day by U.S. marshals, young Ruby was met by throngs of virulent protesters ("I thought maybe it was Mardi Gras... Mardi Gras was always noisy," she remembers). Her prose stays unnervingly true to the perspective of a child: "The policeman at the door and the crowd behind us made me think this was an important place. It must be college, I thought to myself." Inside, conditions were just as strange, if not as threatening. Ruby was kept in her own classroom, receiving one-on-one instruction from teacher Barbara Henry, a recent transplant from Boston. Sidebars containing statements from Henry and Bridges's mother, or excerpts from newspaper accounts and John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, provide information and perspectives unavailable to Bridges as a child. As the year went on, Henry accidentally discovered the presence of other first graders, and she had to force the principal to send them into her classroom for part of the day (the principal refused to make the other white teachers educate a black child). Ironically, it was only when one of these children refused to play with Ruby ("My mama said not to because you're a nigger") that Ruby realized that "everything had happened because I was black.... It was all about the color of my skin." Sepia-toned period photographs join the sidebars in rounding out Bridges's account. But Bridges's words, recalling a child's innocence and trust, are more vivid than even the best of the photos. Like poetry or prayer, they melt the heart. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

USA TODAY
Thursday, March 23, 2000
LIFE

The best in the eyes of young readers
by: Bob Minzesheimer

Norman Rockwell painted her when she was 6, surrounded by four federal marshals, marching to a New Orleans elementary school in the cause of integration.
Nearly 40 years later, Ruby Bridges turned her memories of that experience into a book for children. Today, Through My Eyes (Scholastic, $16.95) wins an award as 1999's best non-fiction children's book that "advances humanitarian ideals and serves as an inspiration to young readers." It's recommended for readers ages 7 to 12.
It's one of three awards from the Bank Street College of Education in New York. Each year, Bank Street organizes a children's book committee - half adults, half kids. They review 4,000 books and recommend 600 for various age groups.
'The work is shared by 28 librarians, teachers, authors and parents and 28 "young reviewers" (ages 7 to 15) from across the country who have in common a passion for books. Today, the committee issues the new edition of The Best Children's Books of the Year, which costs $8, and awards two others prizes:
- For a book "in which young people deal in a positive and realistic way with difficulties" and "grow emotionally and moraly"- Gina Willner- Pardo for Figuring Out Frances (Houghton Mifflin, $14). It's about a 10-year-old girl who's trying to figure out boys, her mother and a grand- mother who has Alzheimer's. For readers 8 to 12.
- For the best poetry book - to Sonya Sones for Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy (HarperCollins, $14.95). It's about dealing with an older sister's mental breakdown. For readers 12 to 14.
For more information, call 212-8754540 or see www.bankstreet.edu/bookcom.