With Robert Coles’s 1995 picture book, “The Story of Ruby Bridges,” and a Disney television movie, readers may feel they already know all about Bridges, who in 1960 was the first black child to attend a New Orleans public elementary school.

    With heartbreaking understatement*, she gives voice to her 6-year-old self.

    Accompanied on her first day by U.S. marshals, young Bridges was met by crowds of virulent* protesters. Her prose stays true to the perspective* of a child: “The policeman at the door and the crowd behind us made me think this was an important place. It must be college, I thought to myself.”

    Inside, conditions were just as strange, if not as threatening. Bridges was kept in her own classroom, receiving one-on-one instruction from teacher Barbara Henry. Sidebars containing statements from Henry and Bridges’ mother, or excerpts from newspaper accounts and John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley,” provide extra information. As the year went on, Henry accidentally discovered the presence of other first graders, and she had to force the principal to send them into her classroom for part of the day. Ironically*, it was only when one of these children refused to play with Bridges that the girl realized that “everything had happened because I was black.”

    Sepia*-toned period photographs join the sidebars in rounding out Bridges’s account. But Bridges’ words, recalling a child’s innocence and trust, are more vivid than even the best of the photos. (SD-Agencies)