The Story of Ruby Bridges

Author: Robert Coles

Publishing:  Scholastic Inc.

Number of Pages: Paperback—26 pages

Genre:  Biography, Informational

Reading Level:  Ages 4-8

Summary: This book is a story about a little girl who changed history: her name was Ruby Bridges.  The story starts off talking about Ruby and how her family is very poor and how they moved to New Orleans because her daddy lost his job.  It says that every Sunday the family went to church because they wanted to be near God’s spirit.  At the time, black children and white children went to different schools, but in 1960 a judge ordered four black girls to go to two white elementary schools.  Ruby was sent to the William Frantz Elementary School.  The parents were very worried but they had a lot of faith and prayed a lot.  On the first day of school for Ruby a large crowd of angry white people carried signs and yelled at Ruby to go back to where she came from and some of the people wanted to hurt her.  The police wouldn’t do anything but luckily the President ordered federal marshals to walk Ruby to and from school every day.  When Ruby would get to the classroom every day there would not be any children there because the white people would not send their children to school.  So everyday she sat at her desk and learned from her teacher Mrs. Henry.  One morning Mrs. Henry watched Ruby walking up to the school and she saw her stop among the big crowd and start talking to everyone.  She found out later though that Ruby was actually praying for everyone around her.  She said that everyday on the way to school she would stop and pray for the people but this time she had forgotten to do it before she got to the angry mob but she still stopped and did it when she remembered.  This made the people really angry at her but she continued to always do it, before and after school.  In the Afterword, we learn that eventually parents sent their children to school because they were tired of their children not learning.  By the time Ruby got to second grade the mobs had given up.  Then it goes on to just tell how Ruby is doing now.  This is a great story, with a happy ending.

My Reaction to the Book:  I loved this book so much!  It is such an inspirational story and its all the better since it is true.  What a brave little girl—this is such a great book to read.

Potential Problems:  There is the problem of racism in it, which pretty much dominates the whole story. 

Recommendations:  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone; I love this book!  It’s such a great story—very inspirational and wonderful to know about.