Review Of The Book 'The Lions Of Little Rock'

Sixty Years Later
In 1957, the Little Rock High School was racially intergraded for the first time. Little Rock was a large urban city. And, it was a desirable place for people, of any race, to live and work. It was chosen as a pilot city for public school integration, and, had high hopes of success. Other public entities in Little Rock had already integrated with little backlash, which is why Little Rock High was chosen. But, sixty years later, one cannot deny that Little Rock is no better off.
The Lions of Little Rock, by Kristin Levine, is a fictional book set in 1958, the year following the integration of the Little Rock Public Schools. The book provided a first person perceptive as to what life was like Little Rock during that time. The author, Levine, traveled to Little Rock to conducted interviews with people who experienced the integration first hand, but soon realized that 1958 had more of an impact than she realized.

A new student arrives at West Side Junior High, and she makes a new friend. I think that an older person would have noticed that Liz was an African American, but Marlee did not notice the subtle feature that an adult would. Levine also showed a very important fact about humans. Hate is a learned behavior; and, even today we see that holds true. Red’s character is a perfect example of this, his father taught him to hate African-Americans. Marlee’s parents never expressed any feelings towards African-Americans, which is why she did not hate them. But, through the book we saw that many white people did hate African-American people, for no other reason than they were