Wonderful book! It's the kind of young adult fiction that makes me wonder, "Would kids like this?" because it's so good that as an adult I couldn't put it down.

Can't wait to hear more from Robert Sharenow. ( )

As much as I’m tired of books that tell stories of integration from the perspective of white kids, this seemed like a new angle. What do you do when the mother you love is a very public and violent racist, in the name of protecting you and your “way of life”? What would you have to experience to make you see her actions as wrong? Unfortunately, Louise’s mom is a pretty awful mother and this is a pretty disappointing book. (http://www.parenthetical.net/2012/06/08/review-my-mother-the-cheerleader-by-robert-sharenow-2007/) ( )

The title of this book in itself taught me something--that when Ruby Bridges, the first African-American to go to a formerly all-white school, started at the school, a group of grown women gathered there every day to harass and taunt her. These women were called "the Cheerleaders." This book really opened my eyes to the racial tension in the south during the civil rights movement. Can you believe white families were so upset that rather than have their child go to school with black children, they just kept them home from school for months? In addition to getting a good history lesson, the book has a great story about a girl and her mother. ( )

History looks different when it is seen through the eyes of a child! Very thought-provoking book...it would be great to read in a history class when talking about Ruby Bridges & desegregation ( )

Sharenow takes the reader into the world of white supremacists like the Cheerleaders, the women who jeered at six-year-old Ruby Bridges as she walked into her elementary school in New Orleans's Ninth Ward in 1960. Louise is thirteen, and her mother Pauline has pulled her out of school to protest desegregation. Pauline spends her mornings screaming with the Cheerleaders and her afternoons drinking herself into oblivion while Louise runs her boarding house, Rooms on Desire.When Morgan Miller, a Jewish editor from New York, briefly stays at the boarding house, both Louise and her mother are fascinated. Morgan has come south to renew his broken relationship with his family, but quickly becomes involved in a conflict with members of the Klan. By eavesdropping on her mother's conversations with Morgan, Louise finds out things about herself and her mother she had never known. Pauline is both more broken and more loving than Louise had ever realized. What comes as a result of the book's tragic ending shows how courage and strength are imperfect yet present, even within the most racist of characters. ( )