The Story of Ruby Bridges

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.

 

Review by Mary Ruth Donnelly

 

Lesson - Identify Genre

Lesson - Drawing Conclusions

Lesson - Drawing Conclusions, Summarizing

Lesson - Sequencing

Lesson - Interpreting Instructions

Resources

 

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