Review of The Story of Ruby Bridges,
Robert Coles; Illus. George Ford
The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles
with illustrations by George Ford is the true story of one of the four little
girls who integrated the New Orleans public schools in 1960. Three of the girls
were sent to one school, and only six-year-old Ruby was sent to William Frantz
Elementary School. After some brief introductory material explaining Ruby’s
family’s move to New Orleans from rural Mississippi, Coles depicts the court
scene where the decision is made to send the girls to integrate the schools,
explaining that “[t]he black children were not able to receive the same
education as the white children. It wasn’t fair. And it was against the
nation’s law.”
One more page shows the family’s preparation for
the ordeal by praying in church. The rest of the book, somewhat over half,
focuses on Ruby’s trips to the school through angry mobs and her days in the
classroom which she attended alone, the other students having been pulled out of
school by their parents. The climax of the book comes one morning when Ruby
stops on her way through the angry mobs outside the school and prays for God to
forgive the people in the mob. The suspense of the event is heightened by its
presentation. First the reader sees her teacher, Miss Hurley, in a two-page
spread, looking out the window. The reader does not even see the scene outside
that Hurley sees. The next two pages, perhaps through Miss Hurley’s eyes, depict
Ruby talking surrounded by an angry crowd. Readers only look on as Hurley did.
Federal marshals protecting Ruby look fearful. One has his hand protectively on
her shoulder. Only on the third two page spread on the incident does the reader
learn what had happened as Ruby is depicted having entered her classroom. Miss
Hurley asks why she talked to the people, and Ruby replies with irritation that
she wasn’t talking to them, she was saying a prayer she always said before
approaching the mob. That day she had forgotten and stopped to pray when she
remembered. Finally on the fourth page spread and conclusion of the story,
readers learn that she had prayed for God’s forgiveness for the people who say
“bad things” about her. A one-page “Afterword” comments on the other students’
eventually return to school, Ruby’s completion of school, and her adult life as
a successful businesswoman, mother, and founder of an organization to encourage
parental involvement in schools.
The story of a small child being threatened and
harassed by a mob could potentially be frightening to the young children for
whom this book is intended. But Coles, a child psychiatrist, and the
illustrator, Ford, have used many methods to ensure the story is one of a
heroine, not a powerless child. To begin with, Coles opens the book with a
direct quote from Ruby’s mother suggesting, “She [Ruby]… helped change our
country.” The first page of the text has a direct quote from the adult Ruby
herself, thus projecting the reader into Ruby’s future. We know she will
survive and become an adult worth quoting. Her teacher, Miss Hurley, is quoted
as saying that Ruby was “as normal and relaxed as any child I ever taught.” The
“Afterword” assures young readers by projecting into the present where Ruby is
now a wife, mother, and successful businesswoman.
Illustrator, Ford, contributes to a dominant
feeling of warmth and assurance in this story of hostility. His drawings in
watercolor paints mixed with acrylic inks and drawing inks remain in the pastel
and mostly warm ranges. The lack of intense color has a calming effect. Ruby
and her mother, after the first two drawings, are always depicted in soft warm
reds and yellows. Her father wears a white or pastel suit with shadows of
either red or yellow, thus visually drawing the family unit solidly together.
The schoolroom, though void of children besides Ruby, is depicted in warm browns
and tans and filled with light. The window contains a planter with soft red
flowers. Miss Hurley wears calming blues and greens. And, though she is
clearly Caucasian, Ford has colored her skin with warm, glowing brown tones,
thus giving a subtle suggestion that there is a warmth between the child and her
teacher. The angry members of the mob are drawn in a more sketchy manner and
those in the foreground are turned away from the reader. Perhaps this makes
them less threatening to the young reader while clearly depicting the courage
Ruby needed to pass by them every day.
Those who use this book in class will surely want
to leave plenty of time for open discussion to be certain that children are
allowed to deal with the threatening aspects of the story. A young child being
treated with such unjust hostility is difficult for an adult reader to witness
and may be even more so for a child. The author and illustrator have provided
plenty of material to help children recognize that though this was a violent and
potentially frightening time for young Ruby, she, her family, and some of the
other adults around her found ways to overcome fear and hate.