March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine by Melba Pattillo Beals (2018)

This sequel to Warriors Don’t Cry for young readers describes Melba’s life and achievements following her year at Central High School.

Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black by Gregory Howard Williams (1996)

Williams, a chronological contemporary of Melba, believed until he was 10 years old that he was white, but found out upon relocating to his father’s ancestral home that he was biracial; his memoir details the persecution he experienced both from the white and Black communities when he attended an integrated high school.

The Little Rock Nine and School Desegregation by Charlotte Taylor and Mara Miller (2015)

This young-adult nonfiction narrative examines the struggles faced by the nine Black students who entered Little Rock Central High in 1957.

Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Russell Freedman (2006)

Two years before the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her bus seat to a white man, leading to the yearlong Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, a milestone in the Civil Rights Movement. Freedman is a distinguish author of young-adult books dealing with Civil Rights.