Please, God, let me learn how to stop being a warrior. Sometimes I just need to be a girl.
-- Melba's diary, on her sixteenth birthday

In 1957 Melba Pattillo turned sixteen. That was also the year she became a warrior on the front lines of a civil rights firestorm. Following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board Education, she was one of nine teenagers chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High School. This is her remarkable story.

You will listen to the cruel taunts of her schoolmates and their parents. You will run with her from the threat of a lynch mob's rope. You will share her terror as she dodges lighted sticks of dynamite, and her pain as she washes away the acid sprayed into her eyes. But most of all you will share Melba's dignity and courage as she refuses to back down.

Warriors Don't Cry

ANNOTATION

Melba Patillo Beals, who as a teenager in 1957 became a key player in a critical civil rights struggle, has abridged for young readers her affecting adult title Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High School.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

You've gotta learn to defend yourself. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.-- The soldier assigned to protect Melba

Please, God, let me learn how to stop being a warrior. Sometimes I just need to be a girl.-- Melba's diary, on her sixteenth birthday

In 1957 Melba Pattillo turned sixteen. That was also the year she became a warrior on the front lines of a civil rights firestorm. Following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board Education, she was one of nine teenagers chosen to integrate Little Rock's Central High School. This is her remarkable story.

You will listen to the cruel taunts of her schoolmates and their parents. You will run with her from the threat of a lynch mob's rope. You will share her terror as she dodges lighted sticks of dynamite, and her pain as she washes away the acid sprayed into her eyes. But most of all you will share Melba's dignity and courage as she refuses to back down.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The author was one of nine black teenagers who in 1957 integrated their high school despite violent retaliation. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Beals, one of the "Little Rock Nine'' and a former NBC reporter, writes movingly of desegregating Little Rock's Central High School in 1957-58. Using diaries and contemporary media coverage, she re-creates a time of fear and tenaciously held hopes. The horrors the nine black students faced are told in a teenager's voice, simply and sadly. Robbed of normal adolescence, Beals grew up fast. Her gratitude to the 101st Airborne for their protection stands in stark contrast to her bewilderment over the behavior of Governor Faubus and school officials, who refused to enforce even rudimentary discipline to prevent the daily torture. Beals credits family and friends, along with Daisy Bates, the late Thurgood Marshall, and the press, for their support. Though her use of "re-created'' conversations does not always work, this remains a highly readable tale of courage in the face of persecution that deserves to be read, especially by young people. School libraries should consider, and all libraries with strong black history collections will want to purchase. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/94.]-Donna L. Cole, Leeds P.L., Ala.

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-Beals, one of the nine black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, AR, in 1957, tells an incredible story of faith, family love, friendships, and strong personal commitment. Drawing from the diaries she kept, the author easily puts readers in her saddle oxfords as she struggles against those people in both the white and black communities who would have segregation continue. Her prose does not play on the sympathy of readers; it simply tells it like it happened. She shares the physical, mental, and emotional torture and abuse she suffered at the hands of teenagers and adults. She also shares the support, the encouragement, and the help she received from both whites and blacks. While the book's length may discourage younger readers, those who begin it will find the reading easy and fast. This abridgement of the author's 1994 adult title of the same name is fascinating as well as enlightening and honest.-Valerie Childress, J.W. Holloway Middle School, Whitehouse, TX