Short-listed for the 2010 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature, the 2010 Snow Willow Award and the 2011 CLA Young Adult Book Award
Born with Down syndrome, Ruby Jean Sharp comes from a time when being a developmentally disabled person could mean growing up behind locked doors and barred windows and being called names like "retard" and "moron." When Ruby Jean's caregiver and loving grandmother dies, her mother takes her to Woodlands School in New Westminster, British Columbia, and rarely visits.
As Ruby Jean herself says: "Can't say why they called it a school – a school's a place you go for learnin an then after you get to go home. I never learnt much bout ledders and numbers, an I sure never got to go home."
It's here in an institution that opened in 1878 and was originally called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum that Ruby Jean learns to survive isolation, boredom, and every kind of abuse. Just when she can hardly remember if she's ever been happy, she learns a lesson about patience and perseverance from an old crow.
1 of 1 copy available
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 26, 2012 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
- ISBN: 9781770705791
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781770705791
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781770705791
- File size: 614 KB
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Languages
- English
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Levels
- ATOS Level: 4.7
- Lexile® Measure: 850
- Interest Level: 6-12(MG+)
- Text Difficulty: 3
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Reviews
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March 15, 2011
Grades 7-10 Following the death of her grandmother, eight-year-old Ruby Jean, who has Down syndrome, is left at Woodlands School, an institution for the mentally delayed. Problems abound: locked doors and a lack of privacy confound her, and she is molested by some of the staff; eventually, though, she receives life-skills training, is placed with an elderly couple, and finds employment at a sheltered workshop. After a mix-up leads her to believe she will be returned to Woodlands, she runs away, finding refuge among the homeless. Ruby Jean chronicles her grim but ultimately triumphant story in a first-person narrative that is both naive (filled with grammatical mistakes, misspellings, and misunderstandings) and perceptive at the same time. Set around Vancouver, British Columbia, between 1965 and 1996, the book features a fictional protagonist, but Woodlands School and its history are real. Characters with Down syndrome rarely take center stage in childrens literature; this novel is valuable for offering Ruby Jeans perspective as well as its insight into the history of how this vulnerable group has been treated.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
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