Middle-Grade Review: Ruby Lee and Me

Waiting for my book group pick to become available, I needed a quick book last month to squeeze in between books, and I wanted to stick with my Black History Month theme. I found the perfect choice on my TBR shelves (from 2016!): Ruby Lee and Me, a middle-grade novel by Shannon Hitchcock. It's a warm, rich story that combines family drama, friendship, and the racial tensions of integration in the South in the 1960's.

Twelve-year-old Sarah is supposed to be watching her little sister, Robin, on a summer day in 1969 North Carolina, but she gets distracted by the book she's reading. Robin runs into the street and is hit by a car. She's seriously injured, and Sarah and her family are devastated. Sarah goes out to her grandparents' farm to stay with them, while her parents spend every day at the hospital with Robin. No one knows that Sarah blames herself and is torn apart with guilt over what happened. But life on the farm with her grandparents in the summer is always comforting to her, and she's especially excited to see her friend Ruby, a Black girl who lives with her grandma next-door to the farm. Sarah notices that while their grandmothers are close friends at home, they barely speak to each other when they pass in town. Now, the big news in town is that the school that Sarah will be attending in the fall will be integrating for the first time, with their very first African-American teacher. Sarah is nervous about going to a new school but is reassured that her friend, Ruby, will be by her side ... until Ruby tells her that they can't be friends at school, only at home, like their grandmothers. Their different attitudes cause a rift between the two girls, and Sarah's summer becomes even worse, as she worries about Robin and now doesn't even have her friend to talk to. 

I loved this sweet story with so much emotional complexity woven through it. Poor Sarah has so many worries for a young girl, and the novel highlights how much she (and by extension, other kids) think about these difficult topics that many adults won't talk to them about. The author paints a beautiful picture of life on the farm, contrasted with all the things that went wrong that summer. She explains in an Author's Note that Sarah's experiences are based on her own childhood in 1967 North Carolina when her sister was injured and schools were integrated, though she was younger than Sarah at the time. She even includes some of her own photos in the back. Perhaps that's why this story is so moving and authentic, with real-feeling characters. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Sarah and Ruby and was rooting for them (and the town) to work things out.

207 pages, Scholastic

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge (bonus points since this one was on my shelf for 6 years?)

Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge - R

Diversity Reading Challenge

 Literary Escapes Challenge - North Carolina

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

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