Ruby, Head High: Ruby Bridge's First Day of School

Summary of Book

It’s Ruby’s first day of school. She puts on her best dress, and her mother braids her hair. But six-year-old Ruby is no ordinary girl, and this first day of school is like none other. She is Ruby Bridges, the first African American girl to attend an all-white school in the segregated South of the 1960s.

Inspired by Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting, The Problem We All Live With, RUBY, HEAD HIGH tells the story of this historic event in American history: the day a little girl held her head high and changed the world.

Author Biography

Award-winning author Irène Cohen-Janca grew up in Tunisia. With a degree in modern literature, she became a librarian before authoring novels and picture books, many of which have been translated into other languages. Today, she lives in France, where she continues to work as a librarian.

Illustrator Biography

Marc Daniau studied at Paris’s Académie Charpentier. He still lives near Paris, where he draws and paints for newspapers, theater posters, comics, and children’s books.