Small Moments

Jim Crow. Segregation. Separate but equal. At the dawn of the Civil Rights movement these words mean little to Mary, an eleven-year-old Southern transplant in New Jersey. Forced to grow up in an place so unlike her old home, Mary clings onto one thing she knows and loves: Amelia her family's African American housemaid. At once a stern caretaker and a tender mother-figure, Amelia's constant presence in Mary's life gradually exposes Mary to the rippling tide of unrest and inequality spreading through the nation, as well as the violent and heartbreaking ramifications of the Tuskegee experiment. Based on a true story, Small Moments is a gripping and heartfelt tale of how one uneducated and underprivileged woman taught a young girl to see the world not in terms of color, but in terms of kindness equality and love. Mary Mills Barrow has been a professional writer her entire career, first as a New York-based editor and as an editor/communications consultant for McKinsey & Co. Inc., an international management-consulting firm in Australia. Later, she was the co-founder of Coolibar, a sun protective clothing company and shortly thereafter created SunAWARE, an anti-skin cancer non-for-profit. She is an award-winning author of several non-fiction and fiction titles about skin cancer prevention and detection. Barrow has also been a volunteer for the National SEED Project for Inclusive Education (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity). The mission of this organization is to engage teachers from all subject areas, grades, and types of schools to create gender fair, multi-culturally equitable and globally informed education.' She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1953. She moved with her family to New Jersey in 1959, graduated from Princeton Day School in 1972, and George Washington University in 1976. Mary can be contacted at mary@marymillsbarrowbooks.com and she maintains a blog at marymillsbarrowbooks.com. "The significant family moments beautifully described by the author reveal a child's growing understanding of injustice as she experiences racism, sexism, and classism in her daily life. . . . Perhaps the best example I've read that the personal is political, Small Moments is heartbreaking and true." -Judy Logan, author Teaching Stories