Carlotta’s Special Dress: How a Walk to School Changed Civil Rights History

Gr 1-3–As the summer of 1957 comes to an end, 14-year-old Arkansan Carlotta is excited to start at a new school where she will be one of its first Black students. Carlotta’s favorite uncle, Em, gives her $20 to buy a new dress. Usually, Carlotta’s mom makes her dresses, but for this walk to the first day of school, Carlotta needs to look perfect. Carlotta and her mom go shopping, and the girl finds exactly what she’s looking for. She hopes that her new dress will show the angry grown-ups fighting against integration that she isn’t scary. But before Carlotta can start at school, the governor calls in the National Guard to keep her and the other new Black kids out of the student body. Carlotta and her Black peers soon become known as the Little Rock Nine. President Eisenhower, hearing what happens, sends in a special military to help protect the kids. Though the group is able to go to school now, their journey is far from an easy one. Nearly 70 years later, Lanier and Page’s book offers an eye-opening account of what Lanier endured as the youngest student in the Little Rock Nine. Newton combines digital and collage art styles to create unique, multidimensional illustrations that depict Black characters with a range of dark and light skin tones.