My Selma: True Stories of a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement

Combining family stories of the everyday and the extraordinary as seen through the eyes of her twelve-year-old self, Willie Mae Brown gives readers an unforgettable portrayal of her coming of age in a town at the crossroads of history.

As the civil rights movement and the fight for voter rights unfold in Selma, Alabama, many things happen inside and outside the Brown family's home that do not have anything to do with the landmark 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Yet the famous outrages which unfold on that span form an inescapable backdrop in this collection of stories. In one, Willie Mae takes it upon herself to offer summer babysitting services to a glamorous single white mother--a secret she keeps from her parents that unravels with shocking results. In another, Willie Mae reluctantly joins her mother at a church rally, and is forever changed after hearing Martin Luther King Jr. deliver a defiant speech in spite of a court injunction.

Infused with the vernacular of her Southern upbringing, My Selma captures the voice and vision of a fascinating young person--perspicacious, impetuous, resourceful, and even mystical in her ways of seeing the world around her--who gifts us with a loving portrayal of her hometown while also delivering a no-holds-barred indictment of the time and place.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
Published: 01/03/2023
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.7lbs
Size: 7.50h x 5.60w x 1.60d
ISBN: 9780374390235
Age: Ages 9-12


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 11/15/2022
Publishers Weekly 11/28/2022
School Library Journal 01/13/2023 pg. 1
Horn Book Magazine 01/01/2023 pg. 100
Booklist 01/06/2023
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 03/01/2023

About the Author
Willie Mae Brown left Alabama at the age of seventeen in 1970 to start a new life in Brooklyn, New York, where she worked for the New York Telephone Company until 2003. A visual artist as well as an author, she began writing stories about her childhood in 2012 and reading them in public in 2015. Known for infusing her personal narratives with the vernacular of her Southern upbringing, Brown has read at numerous public events including Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations at Brooklyn Borough Hall, as well as at many special events across the city, in her home state, and beyond. My Selma is her first book.