Books for Prep | |
 - GREAT READ FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDSI ordered this book as required reading for my 8th graders during a study of the civil rights movement. It was perfect...in every way. Students studied the book in their literature class while talking about civil rights in social studies. It was an easy read and most students were hooked from the first pages. The extent of the brutality with which the members of the Little Rock Nine were treated during the year long integration of Central High School both horrified and moved my students. I highly recommend this first hand account for its effectiveness in communicating what the events of the civil rights movement had to do with the lives of the individuals involved. Very powerful..catalyzed great class discussions. Also loved the 4 for 3 deal through Amazon which made this affordable for my kids. Rating: - I T CAME TO PASSsO MUCH OUR RACE OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN THROUGH , AND THE BOOK TELLS A LOT OF THE TRIUMPHS WE WENT THROUGH, AND STILL SOME OF THOSE THINGS STILL ARE GOING ON TODAy. So the title it came to pass is the right title because god said in his word nothing but the rightous. Rating:  - Repetition GaloreMelba Pattillo Beals' "Warriors Don't Cry" was amateur at best. While the purpose of the memoir is inspiring, Beals just appeared to be a broken record. Upon reading other reviews, I thought this memoir was going to be heartbreaking and inspiring. Yet as I began to read, a pattern developed. The book dragged on and on yet there seemed to be no progression. I found myself void of emotion throughout the whole recount. Needless to say, this was a disappointment, and extremely poorly written. Rating: - Warriors Don't CryWe are coming up on the 50th anniversary of the integration of Central High in Little Rock. This book is written by one of the courageous students who braved a racist mob to claim the equality and justice we are all promised in a democracy. The photographs of one student, Elizabeth Eckford, facing the abusive and threatening crowds became iconic, part of history and public memory. What is not as well known is what life was like for the nine students inside the school everyday. Everyday they were threatened, physically attacked, suffered abusive language and attitudes from the white, segregationist students. The author, Melba Patillo Beals, is an extraordinary writer, storyteller and she is blazingly honest. As a way of celebrating July 4th, read this book and give it to every young person over the age of 10 that you know. Rating: - "With All Deliberate Speed . . ."Melba Joy Pattillo Beals was at the heart of a vortex of history as one of the "Little Rock Nine" who integrated Arkansas' preeminent public school in 1957. In the wake of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, "Brown v. Board of Education," schools throughout the United States were ordered to integrate "with all deliberate speed." Violent opposition to the integration of Central High led to the garrisoning of Little Rock by the 101st Airborne Division, the first (and thus far only) active-engagement use of Federal troops in the South since Reconstruction. Ms. Beals (now a journalist) has a journalist's eye as she recalls her experiences at Central High that year. Drawing on her memories and on the copious and detailed diaries she kept, Ms. Beals puts us right into her well-shined saddle shoes, and right into the halls of Central. At first glance, Melba Pattillo would have seemed to be the wrong sort of person to be on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement. At fifteen, she was a girl given to romantic daydreams, a girl seemingly perfectly content to listen to Buddy Holly on the radio while cuddling with her stuffed animal collection amidst her flouncy white comforter and matching pillows. But deep inside, Melba Pattillo had a core of steel. Her mother held an advanced degree in Education, and her gentle, stern, and unyielding Grandmother India had an unshakeable faith both in God, and in Melba, a faith which she transmitted almost by osmosis to her granddaughter---"God's warriors don't cry, child." If other members of Melba's family and community did not share these ideas, ideals, and values, at least they all understood that this remarkable young lady (and her eight fellow classmates) was doing something that needed to be done, something that portended a sea change in the world. But for all the fine rhetoric, life at Central was a hell of crowded corridors, shadowy stairwells, and constant terror. From day one, avowed segregationists in the school, in the community, and in the government (including Governor Orval Faubus) tried to break the back of the integration by means foul and fouler. Adult members of Little Rock's White Citizens Council educated their charges at Central in the ways and means of torture. Anyone stunned by the constant reports of current-day "violence in our schools" will be shattered by Ms. Beals' seemingly endless recitation of the horrors inflicted upon the Little Rock Nine in the halls of Central High. Being cursed at, spat upon, and called a "N****r" was nothing much; open threats with weapons, violent beatings and stompings, stabbings, scaldings with near-boiling hot water, dousings with unspeakable liquids, strangulations, attempts at immolation, and acid sprays in the eyes were commonplace. These were not just hurtful acts. They were often life-threatening, and the passivity (or even gleeful acquiescence) of most of the CHS school officials in the face of such ongoing abuse of these children put in their care is enough to enrage the reader. The lack of direct adult interest in what the Little Rock Nine were going through is paralyzing to consider. Little was done to protect them, even by their supporters. The 101st was pulled out of Little Rock in a deal brokered by Beltway Bandits, and what was actually happening to the Little Rock Nine was abstract to the politicians. The price these nine black teens paid for our freedom is beyond valuation. And if the constancy of the violence portrayed in the telling of the tale somewhat blunts the reader's emotions after a time, it is harder to feel blunted when Melba Beals talks about the wrenching changes that went on within herself. Her fame (or notoriety among segregationists) meant that her home became a fortress-prison from which she could rarely escape. Drive-by shootings and bomb threats kept most of the lifelong friends she had made among "our people" (as she calls the blacks in her community) far away, and she was not invited to parties and outings. Holidays passed without the usual gaggle of friends and relations. The sad retelling of her unattended Sweet Sixteen Party is a heartbreaking moment in time, and her sorrow still reaches across the years to touch the reader. But there are the finer moments as well: Every day spent at Central is at the end a day of victory; her meetings with remarkable men such as Thurgood Marshall are treasured moments in her life; her gratitude to the brave men of the 101st Airborne and the task they undertook to uphold the law of the land just so a girl could go to school where she chose, is inspiring; her first few tentative friendships with some white Central High students gives us cause for hope. Melba Pattillo traded her childhood for adulthood too soon, and her innocence for a hard-honed survival instinct by force. We live in a far different society today, and in part that is due to Melba Beals. We can thank whatever Spirit moves us that she was given the talent to write this incredible memoir. This is an essential read. In association with Amazon.com | |