My Selma

A stirring memoir of growing up Black in a town at the epicenter of the fight for freedom, equality, and human rights.

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 fractured town at the crossroads of history. Selma's pivotal role in the civil rights movement forms 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 father 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. My Selma captures the voice and vision of a perspicacious, impetuous, resourceful young person who gives us a loving portrait of her hometown while also delivering a no-holds-barred indictment of the time and place.

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. She began writing stories of her childhood in 2012. A powerful public speaker, she has read from her stories at numerous events including Martin Luther King Day celebrations at Brooklyn Borough Hall as well as at galleries, schools, and other venues across the city, in her home state, and beyond.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year
A Missouri Association of School Librarians Dogwood Reading List Selection

“In this powerful memoir, artist Willie Mae Brown recounts striking stories of growing up in Selma, Alabama during the early years of the civil rights movement. Her salient first-hand narrative places readers directly into the sights, smells, and sounds of her hometown.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“Vivid sensory language is the book’s great strength . . . A beautiful evocation of time and place . . . In her afterword, Brown says that ‘hope is in the telling,’ and her stories offer a strong voice still needed in the ongoing struggle for justice.” —The Horn Book

“Poignant . . . By balancing personal struggles with racism with everyday joys of community, family, and resilience, Brown authentically imbues this clear-eyed tale with salient detail and historical resonance.” —Publishers Weekly

“Brown uses language effectively to bring the times to life, and emerging from the retelling of her history are portraits of people who shaped her thought patterns and ways of being in her formative years. A panoramic yet intimate depiction of a family experiencing radical social changes.” —Kirkus Reviews

ISBN: 9781250848017