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Mary Jane
Mary Jane finds that it is much more difficult than she expected to be the only black girl amongst the white at Wilson High when she is chosen as one of two non-white students for a newly integrated school. Mary Jane had been sheltered from white antagonisms, and is now suddenly thrust into a world of snobbery, prejudice and suspicion. At first she bitterly resents the role of ambassador, but slowly becomes less defensive and forms a sound relationship with her classmates based on genuine compatability. While the fictional aspects of the story are little more than adequate, the real value for the high school reader is the clear, undeviating challenge to prejudice, the expose of some of its evils in their active and virulent forms, and a removal of the issue from the academic to the recognizable level
214 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
3 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Sterling
65 books32 followersDorothy Sterling (Dannenberg) was a Jewish-American writer and historian.
She was born and grew up in New York City, attended Wellesley College, and graduated from Barnard College in 1934. After college, she worked as a journalist and writer in New York for several years. In 1937, she married Philip Sterling, also a writer. In the 1940s, she worked for Life Magazine for 8 years. In early 1968, 448 writers and editors including Dorothy put a full-page ad in the New York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the Vietnam War.
Dorothy was the author of more than 30 books, mainly non-fiction historical works for children on the origins of the women's and anti-slavery movements, civil rights, segregation, and nature, as well as mysteries. She has won several awards for her writings, including the Carter G. Woodson Book Award from the National Council For The Social Studies For The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell The Story Of Reconstruction, in 1976.
She was born and grew up in New York City, attended Wellesley College, and graduated from Barnard College in 1934. After college, she worked as a journalist and writer in New York for several years. In 1937, she married Philip Sterling, also a writer. In the 1940s, she worked for Life Magazine for 8 years. In early 1968, 448 writers and editors including Dorothy put a full-page ad in the New York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the Vietnam War.
Dorothy was the author of more than 30 books, mainly non-fiction historical works for children on the origins of the women's and anti-slavery movements, civil rights, segregation, and nature, as well as mysteries. She has won several awards for her writings, including the Carter G. Woodson Book Award from the National Council For The Social Studies For The Trouble They Seen: Black People Tell The Story Of Reconstruction, in 1976.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
May 14, 2013
I read this book when I was around 11 years old. At that time, I read a lot, but I rarely read a book more than once (twice was pushing it), but I read this book numerous times. I found the story fascinating.
September 1, 2016
This came up because of a question in a librarian's group about the first book we remembered reading that had the POV of a person of color. I think I was in third grade when I read this.
I decided to check it out and see what I thought as an adult, and it still holds up. Quite amazing that this was published in 1959!
I decided to check it out and see what I thought as an adult, and it still holds up. Quite amazing that this was published in 1959!
May 30, 2015
Twelve year old Mary Jane Douglas, a black girl who lives with her father, a lawyer, and mother, who was raised in the city, in the southern city of High Ridge, is visiting in the summer on the farm of her grandfather, a famous retired college professor. Her sister Lou Ellen is a nurse at a hospital in Philadelphia, PA, and her brother James is off studying to be a lawyer like his daddy. Having graduated from sixth grade at the black’s Dunbar Elementary School, she chooses in the fall to be one of two black students to go to the newly integrated Woodrow Wilson Junior-Senior High School instead of the black’s Douglass Junior-Senior High School because she wants to become a biologist and Wilson has the courses that she needs. All of her family, who have sheltered her from prejudice, have warned her not to do so, but she is determined to go.
However, when she and Fred Jackson, accompanied by their fathers, get to the school on the first day, she is unprepared for the crowd of yelling, screaming people expressing their hatred, and for the attitude of snobbery, coldness, and suspicion on the part of both many students and even some teachers which follows. There are times when she thinks of transferring to Douglass or even running away to Grandpa’s farm. Can she continue in the new school? Will she ever make any friends? And how can an injured squirrel help? Yes, we know that a certain degree of racial prejudice still exists today, although perhaps not as much as the present-day race-baiters among us want us to think, and it probably always will, but I doubt that kids nowadays can begin to imagine the kind of venom and vitriol spewed out against blacks in the early days of school integration. This book will give them a good idea of what it was like for black students living in those times.
A few common euphemisms (gosh, darn, gee) appear, but no cursing or profanity is used. Some men are said to smoke a pipe or cigars. However, church is very important in the lives of the Douglas family and their friends. Author Dorothy Sterling does a good job of blending common, everyday details into the action of the plot which makes the characters seem quite real and shows that while we may have differences we are all similar in many ways. I like how the book subtly demonstrates that bias can be a two-way street. It is just as possible for African-Americans to have a stereotypical view of whites as vice versa. And in all of her trials, Mary Jane learns the important lesson that everyone else has problems too. Mary Jane was a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award Nominee in 1961.
However, when she and Fred Jackson, accompanied by their fathers, get to the school on the first day, she is unprepared for the crowd of yelling, screaming people expressing their hatred, and for the attitude of snobbery, coldness, and suspicion on the part of both many students and even some teachers which follows. There are times when she thinks of transferring to Douglass or even running away to Grandpa’s farm. Can she continue in the new school? Will she ever make any friends? And how can an injured squirrel help? Yes, we know that a certain degree of racial prejudice still exists today, although perhaps not as much as the present-day race-baiters among us want us to think, and it probably always will, but I doubt that kids nowadays can begin to imagine the kind of venom and vitriol spewed out against blacks in the early days of school integration. This book will give them a good idea of what it was like for black students living in those times.
A few common euphemisms (gosh, darn, gee) appear, but no cursing or profanity is used. Some men are said to smoke a pipe or cigars. However, church is very important in the lives of the Douglas family and their friends. Author Dorothy Sterling does a good job of blending common, everyday details into the action of the plot which makes the characters seem quite real and shows that while we may have differences we are all similar in many ways. I like how the book subtly demonstrates that bias can be a two-way street. It is just as possible for African-Americans to have a stereotypical view of whites as vice versa. And in all of her trials, Mary Jane learns the important lesson that everyone else has problems too. Mary Jane was a Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award Nominee in 1961.
April 14, 2017
Finally found it on Goodreads! My copy is missing both the front and back cover, so it was difficult to find on the Internet without the title. Have had this since I was a kid, and loved.it. Recently discovered in an old box of books. I need to reread. I always thought this novel about integration was very moving.
June 21, 2011
This book had quite an impact on my as a teenager. It was easy for me to recall the title over 30 years later.
January 26, 2022
Enjoyed this story of 12 year old Mary Jane, as she navigates being a school integration pioneer (or ambassador, as she calls it). The author portrays the unjust treatment she receives in a forthright way, while including some positive things as well. I thought the author did a great job of bringing Mary Jane's story to life.
July 29, 2018
Growing up, I was always getting in trouble with my older sister--partly just for messing up her world by being in it, but mostly for reading "her book". I was a much faster reader than she was, and if she left "her" library book lying around I would be sure to pick it up and start reading it. Actually that was kind of a compliment, since she usually checked out books that I didn't even notice, but of course she didn't take it that way!
Coming across this book decades after my sister brought it home from the high school library, I realise that I probably didn't get to finish it back then. I remember about the first two-thirds of it; parts of it made quite an impression since they stuck with me chapter and verse!--but the last third isn't familiar. Maybe even back then I realised it was many things, but "social realism" it was not. Oh, it doesn't paint an overly-rosy picture of integration, not really, but it is very much written from the outside in. It might have been more effective if Sally had been the main character--a nice, shy white girl whose friendship with the one of the only two black students integrated into her school makes her aware of the racism her society has always found acceptable. Sterling, however, chose to try to fit her mind into that of a young black Southern girl instead. Which since she was a Jewish New Yorker born and bred, would have been quite a feat! I know that many Jewish Americans were deeply involved in the Civil Rights struggle, but I doubt many identified racially as black Americans.
Another problem is the idiom. High Ridge is supposedly a small rural Southern town, and yet Mary Jane is the only person who uses a few (a very few) Southern idioms. How does that happen? Okay so Miss Rousseau (!) is your actual French person, but everyone else, black and white, grew up there. Obviously the New York-born author either couldn't or didn't bother to learn the rhythms and vocabulary of smalltown Southern speech.
The whole subplot of the squirrel fell rather flat for me, too. How is it that Mary Jane can just tame a half-grown wild squirrel in a few days? She rescued him in autumn after school is underway, and most squirrels of Furry's type are born in late spring or early summer; that would make him at least seven months old, nearly old enough to mate. Also I went to a small rural highschool myself, and believe me, students might have thought they were sneaking around and "hiding out", but the adults usually had a good idea what they were up to most of the time.
That was my biggest problem with the book this time around--the adults who deal directly with Mary Jane and Sally seem to react in unbelievable ways. Oh, sure, they're meant to be sympathetic to both integration and the girls' friendship, but I doubt they would have got away with quite so much rule breaking as they did. First offenders, okay all right--but have a few first-offenses, all in a great big heap!
The "science club" thing was an unfortunate choice for Sterling, since the girls' original special project is almost a copy of one that appears in Otis Spofford, published six years before "Mary Jane." Maybe that's why they decided to change their project, but that thread is chopped off short, leaving the big issue of how the other schools will react to a POC participating at what has always been an all-white event up to the reader's imagination, with only a sententious slogan as the final line.
Disappointing.
Coming across this book decades after my sister brought it home from the high school library, I realise that I probably didn't get to finish it back then. I remember about the first two-thirds of it; parts of it made quite an impression since they stuck with me chapter and verse!--but the last third isn't familiar. Maybe even back then I realised it was many things, but "social realism" it was not. Oh, it doesn't paint an overly-rosy picture of integration, not really, but it is very much written from the outside in. It might have been more effective if Sally had been the main character--a nice, shy white girl whose friendship with the one of the only two black students integrated into her school makes her aware of the racism her society has always found acceptable. Sterling, however, chose to try to fit her mind into that of a young black Southern girl instead. Which since she was a Jewish New Yorker born and bred, would have been quite a feat! I know that many Jewish Americans were deeply involved in the Civil Rights struggle, but I doubt many identified racially as black Americans.
Another problem is the idiom. High Ridge is supposedly a small rural Southern town, and yet Mary Jane is the only person who uses a few (a very few) Southern idioms. How does that happen? Okay so Miss Rousseau (!) is your actual French person, but everyone else, black and white, grew up there. Obviously the New York-born author either couldn't or didn't bother to learn the rhythms and vocabulary of smalltown Southern speech.
The whole subplot of the squirrel fell rather flat for me, too. How is it that Mary Jane can just tame a half-grown wild squirrel in a few days? She rescued him in autumn after school is underway, and most squirrels of Furry's type are born in late spring or early summer; that would make him at least seven months old, nearly old enough to mate. Also I went to a small rural highschool myself, and believe me, students might have thought they were sneaking around and "hiding out", but the adults usually had a good idea what they were up to most of the time.
That was my biggest problem with the book this time around--the adults who deal directly with Mary Jane and Sally seem to react in unbelievable ways. Oh, sure, they're meant to be sympathetic to both integration and the girls' friendship, but I doubt they would have got away with quite so much rule breaking as they did. First offenders, okay all right--but have a few first-offenses, all in a great big heap!
The "science club" thing was an unfortunate choice for Sterling, since the girls' original special project is almost a copy of one that appears in Otis Spofford, published six years before "Mary Jane." Maybe that's why they decided to change their project, but that thread is chopped off short, leaving the big issue of how the other schools will react to a POC participating at what has always been an all-white event up to the reader's imagination, with only a sententious slogan as the final line.
Disappointing.
October 28, 2020
I read this book in Czech translation as a child about a black girl joining a white school when segregation was abolished. I have never met a black person then. The book was very powerful for me as a child.I have never seen a black person. Czechoslovakia is a very white country.
I remebered the book today.
I joined a webinar Gloria-Willingham Toure.
https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/news-and-ev...
She told about her experiences as a black person, as one of the first black children in Arkansas joining a white school, which led to her father losing his job and to a lot of hate mail…
She spoke about a question her professor asked her.
That question “ How many times can you see something before you know it’s true?” will stay with me.
In my case- a daughter of Holocaust survivors and someone with many relatives killed- the “see” in that question can be replaced by “hear”. I had to do some research to understand my family history. I then wrote a novel based on that. I learnt the truth.
Of course, that is the past, the black discrimination is unfortunately still present. But even with “hear” it is a powerful question. We need to see and hear it, again and again, to know it is true and change it. I grew up in a communist country, history teaching was censored, nobody mentioned the Jews, according to our textbooks, the Nazi concentration camps were places where communists and anti-fascists were imprisoned.
If British history textbooks don’t tell the truth about the racism in the British Empire, they are not much better than the communist governments.
Are we trying? Not hard enough!
I remebered the book today.
I joined a webinar Gloria-Willingham Toure.
https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/news-and-ev...
She told about her experiences as a black person, as one of the first black children in Arkansas joining a white school, which led to her father losing his job and to a lot of hate mail…
She spoke about a question her professor asked her.
That question “ How many times can you see something before you know it’s true?” will stay with me.
In my case- a daughter of Holocaust survivors and someone with many relatives killed- the “see” in that question can be replaced by “hear”. I had to do some research to understand my family history. I then wrote a novel based on that. I learnt the truth.
Of course, that is the past, the black discrimination is unfortunately still present. But even with “hear” it is a powerful question. We need to see and hear it, again and again, to know it is true and change it. I grew up in a communist country, history teaching was censored, nobody mentioned the Jews, according to our textbooks, the Nazi concentration camps were places where communists and anti-fascists were imprisoned.
If British history textbooks don’t tell the truth about the racism in the British Empire, they are not much better than the communist governments.
Are we trying? Not hard enough!
July 26, 2016
How far we have come and yet how far we have to go in race relations. Mary Jane is a girl starting junior high in a newly integrated high school. The palpable fear and hatred of everyone in town over the fact that negroes will now be part of everyday life is something that sadly, still rings true today. The language may be different, and officially there are no more "whites only" places. But it was not long ago. A very good fiction piece where a kid can learn compassion and history through the eyes of a 12 year old girl just wanting the best for herself.
October 18, 2017
Mary Jane was one of my childhood favorites, and it stands up well to re-reading. The characters are vividly drawn, and the events all too realistic. I used to read it along with Prudence Crandall, A Woman of Courage (by Elisabeth Yates, I think). Together, those books helped to shape the way I wanted to treat others. I recommend them both.
February 9, 2013
Dětská knížka o rasismu a předsudcích, už si to skoro vůbec nepamatuju, ale vybavuju si, jak se mi hrozně líbilo, že ta holčička měla ochočenou veverku.
November 15, 2015
It's amazing that this was written in 1959. I loved how Mary Jane wasn't perfect--she was learning along with everyone else.
July 10, 2019
Written in 1959 and my edition being from 1966, obviously this book is somewhat 'dated' and not written in the same manner as a Young Adults book would be today. That said, it is a quite insightful read simply because it brings to life and to light a more personal story of the integration of black children into white schools [I use the terminology of the era, with no offense intended]. As a student of history I am familiar with the images of black students walking through angry mobs to enrol in/attend white schools in the South of the United States during the Civil Rights era but this short novel helped me to remember that these historic images are of CHILDREN who were experiencing something horrendous and frightening, while being brave and courageous. That is the story of Mary Jane and I'm glad that I read this book, found among my family's books while cleaning through the collection.
August 26, 2020
I grew up in small town central KS. Everything and everyone around us was White, except for one Hispanic family who lived the next town over. But in 1975, when I was in 3rd grade, I stumbled across this book in the library of the Catholic school I attended and I fell in love with it.
This book made me cry, it made me mad. It made me ask my Mom questions which to this day still don't have satisfactory answers. Between the teachings of my mom (who was very much anti-racism, anti-bigotry in any form) and reading this book over and over and over in 3rd & 4th grade (until our school closed) my world view started coalescing.
This book is a treasure and I was thrilled to find it available on Amazon since it is out of print.
This book made me cry, it made me mad. It made me ask my Mom questions which to this day still don't have satisfactory answers. Between the teachings of my mom (who was very much anti-racism, anti-bigotry in any form) and reading this book over and over and over in 3rd & 4th grade (until our school closed) my world view started coalescing.
This book is a treasure and I was thrilled to find it available on Amazon since it is out of print.
June 16, 2020
This book entered my mind and imagination before I had a chance to be inoculated by what has been explained to me as my white privilege.
Mary Jane had a mind of her own, a stubborn will and a determined Mom. I not only identified with her re:- the above, but all the while being a white boy.
I admired her courage in the face of racism and learned to face my own fears at school because of her.
I find the line is too thin to walk between races, but love, courage and determination transcends fears and widens paths.
Mary Jane had a mind of her own, a stubborn will and a determined Mom. I not only identified with her re:- the above, but all the while being a white boy.
I admired her courage in the face of racism and learned to face my own fears at school because of her.
I find the line is too thin to walk between races, but love, courage and determination transcends fears and widens paths.
January 31, 2019
I read this book over and over in Elementary School and loved it. I think I got it through one of the book sales' programs. Just tripped across it....haven't thought of it in years....Great book
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January 4, 2020Found this gem at one of the Little Free Libraries here in Maine. A Scholastic book that isn't just for kids. Great little story. Moral is "White mice can learn, so can you."
July 13, 2020
A Scholastic purchase a gazillion years ago, I read and reread this book in elementary school (1960s). Loved it. Probably the only book with a Black female main character that I read until college.
October 8, 2020
Seems like a really progressive book for 1959! I wish it had gone on longer, I wanted to find out how the science fair went.
March 9, 2024
Leste denne da jeg var kanskje 11, fantastisk bok som gjorde inntrykk.
April 1, 2024
I read this book as a 10 year old and again at 70. How attitudes have changed! But we still have a long way to go. Well worth ready at any age.
December 17, 2025
It was my first complete read book at 12 and I loved it, I re-read it a couple of times till I lost the book.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews