Ruby Bridges reflects on her life at book festival

By Stacey Plaisance

Associated Press

Published: Thursday, Oct. 18 2012 2:30 a.m. MDT

FILE - In this Jan. 16, 1998 file photo, Barbara Henry, a former teacher at William Frantz Elementry school in New Orleans, left, and her 1960 first grade student Ruby Bridges-Hall, pose for a portrait in Boston. Ruby Bridges will be one of the presenting authors at this weekend’s New Orleans Children’s Book Festival, an event Bridges helped launch in 2010.

Steven Senne, file, Associated Press

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Summary

Ruby Bridges remembers how excited she was when an anonymous donor sent Dr. Seuss books to her New Orleans home in 1960, the year she ended segregation in local public education by enrolling at a previously all-white elementary school.

NEW ORLEANS — Ruby Bridges remembers how excited she was when an anonymous donor sent Dr. Seuss books to her New Orleans home in 1960, the year she ended segregation in local public education by enrolling at a previously all-white elementary school.

The civil rights icon says the books were a bright spot during the time she entered the William Frantz Elementary School at the age of 6. They were pivotal not only to her passion for reading, but also to her later work to get books to as many schoolchildren as possible.

Bridges will be furthering that mission Friday and Saturday at the New Orleans Children's Book Festival, an event she launched with Mayor Mitch Landrieu's wife, Cheryl Landrieu, in 2010.

Free books will be distributed and Bridges and others will read.

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