Ruby Holler - Hardcover

Creech, Sharon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060277327 ISBN 13: 9780060277321

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2002

Synopsis

From Sharon Creech, the Newbery Medal winning author of Walk Two Moons, comes a heartwarming adventure about finding family, and a home, when you least expect it.

Ruby Holler is a Carnegie Medal-winning novel, and with its quirky protagonists and exciting journey, captures the imaginations of readers of all ages.  

Brother and sister Dallas and Florida are the “trouble twins.” In their short thirteen years, they’ve passed through countless foster homes, only to return to their dreary orphanage, Boxton Creek Home.

Run by the Trepids, a greedy and strict couple, Boxton Creek seems impossible to escape. When Mr. Trepid informs the twins that they’ll be helping old Tiller and Sairy Morey go on separate adventures, Dallas and Florida are suspicious.

As the twins adjust to the natural beauty of the outdoors, help the Tillers prepare for their adventures, and foil a robbery, their ultimate search for freedom leads them home to Ruby Holler.

About this title

About the Author

Sharon Creech has written twenty-one books for young people and is published in over twenty languages. Her books have received awards in both the U.S. and abroad, including the Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Honor for The Wanderer, and Great Britain’s Carnegie Medal for Ruby Holler.

Before beginning her writing career, Sharon Creech taught English for fifteen years in England and Switzerland. She lives in Maine, “lured there by my grandchildren,” Creech says.

www.sharoncreech.com

From the Back Cover

As they pulled onto a narrow dirt road, Sairy said, "You are now entering Ruby Holler, the one and only Ruby Holler! Your lives are never going to be the same -- "

Dallas and Florida have been dubbed the "trouble twins." They have been shuffled between foster families and orphanages all their lives, longing only for a loving place to call home, though mistrustful that one exists for the likes of them.

Tiller and Sairy are an eccentric, older couple whose children are grown and long gone, and they're each restless for one more big adventure while their bodies are still spry enough to paddle a river or climb a mountain.

Ruby Holler is the beautiful, mysterious place that changes all of their lives forever. When Tiller and Sairy invite Dallas and Florida to stay with them and keep them company on their adventures, the magic of the Holler takes over, and the two kids begin to think that maybe, just maybe the old folks aren't so bad....

Filled with humor, poignancy, cookies, and treasure maps, Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech's Ruby Holler is a delightful book about a special place where it's never too late to be loved.

Reviews

Grade 4-6-Orphaned twins Dallas and Florida have resigned themselves to living within the confines of the Boxton Creek Home for Children. It's a loveless existence. The Trepids, owners and "rule enforcers" of the home, target the brother and sister at every opportunity and all of the prospective adoptive parents have returned them to the orphanage. Eventually the children are sent to act as temporary companions to an eccentric older couple who live in Ruby Holler, and there they find love and acceptance. While the plot is predictable, the story weaves in an interesting mix of mystery, adventure, and humor, along with age-old and modern problems. Creech does a fine job of developing the unique personalities and the sibling relationship, and the children's defense mechanisms (Dallas's dreamy escapism and Florida's aggression) figure prominently in the interplay among the characters. The text is lively and descriptive with an authentic, if somewhat mystical, rural ambience. This entertaining read from a first-rate author will not disappoint Creech's many fans.
Robyn Ryan Vandenbroek, Elgin Court Public School, St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The characters introduced here two abandoned children, their villainous guardians and a kindly country couple might have stepped out of a Dickens novel, but as Creech (Love that Dog) probes beneath their facades, the characters grow more complex than classic archetypes. Florida and her brother Dallas, raised in an orphanage run by the cold-hearted Trepids, rely on each other rather than grownups for support. They become suspicious when Mr. Trepid informs them that they are going to a place called Ruby Holler to accompany old Mr. and Mrs. Morey on separate vacations. Florida is to be Mr. Tiller Morey's companion on a canoe trip; Dallas is to help Mrs. Sairy Morey hunt down an elusive bird. Readying for the trips proves to be a journey in itself as the Moreys, Florida and Dallas make discoveries about one another as well as themselves in a soothing rural environment. This poignant story evokes a feeling as welcoming as fresh-baked bread. The slow evolution of the siblings who are no angels parallels the gradual building of mutual trust for the Moreys. The novel celebrates the healing effects of love and compassion. Although conflicts emerge, readers will have little doubt that all will end well for the children and the grandparently Moreys. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 4-7. Thirteen-year-old twins Dallas and Florida are continually in trouble for breaking the many rules of the Boxton Creek Home for Children. When an elderly couple, Tiller and Sairy, invite Dallas and Florida to stay with them in nearby Ruby Holler and travel with them beyond it, the twins are wary. Previous foster placements have been disasters. Tiller and Sairy, however, treat the children like their own, talking with them, teaching them, trusting them, loving them, outwitting them, and even letting them save face. In an unusual approach for a children's book, Tiller and Sairy's points of view are at least as important as those of Dallas and Florida; and how the foursome play off one another is one of the key points of the narrative. There's a larger-than-life feel to this novel that makes the minor characters and subplots feel a bit out of scale--or out of sync--but the main story rests squarely on the four well-drawn characters. A stylized yet solid story from the author of the Newbery-award-winning Walk Two Moons (1994). Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpt

Chapter One

The Silver Bird

Dallas leaned far out of the window, his eyes fixed on a bird flying lazily in the distance. Sun slanted through the clouds above, as if a spotlight were aimed on the bird.

A silver bird, Dallas thought. A magical silver bird.

The bird turned suddenly, veering south over the small town of Boxton, toward the faded yellow building and the window from which Dallas leaned. Dallas stretched his arm out. ?Here!? he called. ?Over here!?

The bird swooped toward him and then rose up over the building, high, high into the air, over the alley and the train tracks and the dried-up creek. Dallas watched it rise on the air currents over one brown hill and then another, until it disappeared.

He tried to follow it in his mind. He imagined it flying on until it spied a narrow green valley, a scooped-out basin with a creek looping and winding its way through the center. He pictured it swooping down from the sky into this basin in the hills, to this place where cool breezes drifted through the trees, and where the creek was so clear that every stone on its bottom was visible.

Maybe the silver bird had flown home.

?Get out of that window!? a voice shouted from below. ?No leaning out of windows!?

Dallas leaned a little farther out and called down to Mr. Trepid. ?Did you see that silver bird??

?Get out of that window, or you're going to join your sister down here pulling weeds,? Mr. Trepid threatened.

Dallas spotted his sister, Florida, inching her way along the sidewalk, wrenching clumps of weeds and grass and dirt from the ground.

?Putrid weeds,? Florida snarled, heaving a clod of dirt over her shoulder.

Dallas watched as the clod landed on Mr. Trepid's back and as the man scuttled over to Florida and whacked her on the head. Dallas wished the silver bird would return and snare Mr. Trepid and carry him high up over the town and then drop him, splat, in the middle...

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Ruby Hollerby Creech, Sharon Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Copyright © 2001 Patricia MacLachlan.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-06-023606-X

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060277327
• ISBN 13: 9780060277321
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320