Ruby Bridges: A Talk with My Teacher

A year after becoming the first Black child to integrate William Frantz Elementary School, a young Ruby Bridges (b. 1954) approaches second grade with anticipation, the crowds and U.S. Marshals having now gone. “This school is filled with kids now,” Bridges exclaims, “and some of them even look like me!” Eager to reunite with Mrs. Henry, her first grade teacher during a year that was “one for the history books,” Bridges is crestfallen to discover not only that she’ll have a new classroom and teacher, but that Mrs. Henry has left the school entirely. A sudden turn at the book’s midpoint moves forward to 1995, when the two reunite in Bridges’s adulthood, a meeting 35 years in the making. Tran’s watercolor-style digital art recounts both eras with soft focus, while lengthy text dives into memory and resolution. An author’s note concludes. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)