My Selma by Willie Mae Brown - ADVISABLE

My Selma by Willie Mae Brown, 229 pages. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Macmillan), 2023. $17

Language: G; Mature Content: PG (reference to attempted rape); Violence: PG (reference to murder and beatings)

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS - ADVISABLE 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE 

Willie Mae loves Selma, Alabama: the smells, the community, the food. She lived a comfortable life. Her father worked as a boss over many endeavors in town. Willie Mae hated helping her father in the hot cotton fields, but she did whatever her father asked of her. Her brother, Maine, taught her how to fight and later, protest. Her father and Maine protected her from outsiders, including one incident when a few white men tried to enter her home to rape her. Willie Mae recalls how she felt when she heard the news about Emmet Till and the sit-ins. Once, her brother was arrested for protesting segregation in schools. While that was happening, she and her mother were fortunate to be present at a church rally given by Martin Luther King. He inspired her like he did so many. Later that year, tragedy strikes and leaves a permanent mark on her for the rest of her life. 

I enjoyed Brown’s clear telling of her experiences in Selma. Her use of the southern black dialect held my interest. Her story seems typical of a black teenager during that era in the south. I was disappointed, however, at how she ended the book. I was left hanging and wondering why the last part of the book was emphasized as it was. I wish that she would have integrated her strong words in her preface and afterword into the story. It would have made her story more powerful. MOMMAC