This poignant account recalls firsthand the upheaval surrounding court-ordered busing in the early 1970s to achieve school integration. Silverstein's achingly honest story, woven with historical details, confronts us with powerful questions about race and the use of our schools to engineer social change.

This account recalls firsthand the upheaval surrounding court-ordered bussing in the early 1970s to achieve school integration. Like many students at the vanguard of this great social experiment, sixth-grader Clara Silverstein was spit on, tripped, and shoved by her new schoolmates. At other times she was shunned altogether. In the conventional imagery of the civil rights era, someone in Silverstein's situation would be black. She was white, however - one of the few white students in her entire school.