Melba grows up in Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1940’s where blacks are not treated equally. Melba longs for freedom and equal treatment, even as a young child. At the age of five, she is in church where she feels safe. A group of Ku Klux Klansmen come in during services and a hang a man from one of the beams of the church for being “uppity”. Her grandmother is the guiding force in her life and raises Melba and her brother while her mother works. As Melba reaches high school age she is chose to be one of the “Little Rock Nine”. One of the nine students that integrates Central High School in 1957. Melba writes an interesting biography of being a black child in Arkansas and of being one of the first black students to attend an all-white high school. ( )

This is an excellent book written by one of the little rock nine students. At the time of segregation, the disparity of educational systems was abhorrent. In particular, as a child, Melba writes of the fear of the dark when the KKK came out to scare, and lynching of innocent.

Highly recommended. ( )

Literary merit: Great
Characterization: Great
Recommend: Yes
Level: Middle School

Melba Pattillo Beals is a warrior for Civil Rights and one of the Little Rock Nine. From an early age she understood what segregation meant and constantly questioned why she was mistreated. March Forward girl is her autobiography of growing up in Little Rock Arkansas. The injustice and fear that she lived with from the first day she drew breath. She has frank discussions of race, poverty, and violence that shaped her childhood. She even talks about how as a young child she witnessed a black man hanged in her own church by the Ku Klux Klan.

Melba is the author of Warriors Don’t Cry a classic memoir that focuses of the integration of Central High. This book focuses more on her growing up and childhood. Read this first before reading Warrior’s Don’t Cry for a complete and thorough understanding of Melba and her life. Melba is a part of a historical moment in U.S. history and this book delves into how she was raised and attained a resistance against the injustice she saw in her life. Anyone teaching a unit with Warrior’s Don’t Cry may want to include this as prerequisite reading. A must have for all public libraries and school libraries where Civil Rights is part of the curriculum. ( )

Please see my review under C. Wong on Amazon.com ( )