Customer Reviews

Ruby's Imagine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gold Star Award Winner!

There is a big storm coming. A "Big Spin," as Ruby calls it. Ruby knows the storm is coming because Ruby Butterfly told her, and the Big Oaks told Ruby Butterfly. So it must be true. But, should Ruby tell anyone else? Her grandmother, Mammaloose, says that Ruby just makes things up. Mammaloose probably wouldn't believe her. She would just say it's one more thing from Ruby's imagine. Kind of like Ruby's memories of her sisters and living in the swamp. Just Ruby's imagine.

Not real at all.

Ruby lives in Louisiana with Mammaloose and Uncle Gilbert. Ruby has a special way of talking. Her friend JayEl says it is like Ruby paints a picture with her words. Its just one more thing that makes Ruby stand apart from other people.

Mammaloose isn't particularly loving towards Ruby, but she has her good friends, human and otherwise. The flying people, the rooted people, Samuel Beckett Sparrow and Maya Angelou Hummingbird, Mr. Lagniappe and JayEl, all seem to understand Ruby better than her own grandmother. And Ruby loves everyone. And she warns them that the storm is coming. The storm is real, and it is coming straight toward them. Everything Ruby knows and imagines is about to change because the storm is bringing more destruction than anyone could have imagined and more truth as well.

As Ruby sees her neighborhood swallowed up by the water, she also finds out the truth about the family secrets that have been kept from her for too long. As it turns out, not everything was just Ruby's imagine.

RUBY'S IMAGINE is a true gem of a novel. You become immediately immersed in Ruby's world through her use of highly evocative words and her pure feelings for everyone and everything around her. The story is set during the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Along with a moving story about family and community, there is a very real message about the environment, a subject that is becoming more and more important to every one of us.

Most importantly though, Ruby is a character to cherish. Someone who is as in tune with nature and the people around her as she is with herself. Someone who is nonjudgmental, loving, and forgiving. Someone who likes to make a difference. She is guaranteed to be a character that you will remember for a long time to come.

Reviewed by: JodiG.

This is one of those rare special books, where the reader is totally drawn into the story. Ruby's use of language and the way she views her world is mystical and, at the same time, processes a no-nonsense, matter-of-fact manner. As you read, you will see the magic of the world the way Ruby does.

A Gem of a book.
Kim Antieau's writing can be hard to find but worth the effort.
Easy to read, though in dialect-well packaged and for all ages over twelve years.
Follow Ruby and "the Big Spin" to learn about what might and did happen when the Hurricane strikes.

I picked up this book to pre-read for my kids. I love books about New Orleans life. However I hardly got to the second chapter due to the annoying dialect that made it hard to read. After reading a bit more I discovered that the dialect did not seem to be authentic. A dialect does follow a certain grammar, though incorrect in standard English, there is consistency in a true dialect. I found this missing. Sometimes Ruby speaks with the wrong endings in verb usage, but she does not use double negatives and gradually seems to lose her dialect in the book. At the end Ruby speaks almost standard English as if the author grew tired of using spell check to see if there was consistency or was in a rush to finish the book. It made me take a sigh of relief that I finally could read at a normal pace when the dialect disappeared. It is obvious that this was NOT the author's own dialect that she spoke while growing up.
Though the book is nicely written through the eyes of a poor female teenager, that is raised by simple, poor people with warped ways of solving problems, it has a nice twist in the end. I just think that no one should attempt to write in any dialect that is not their own or in which they are fluent. It is annoying and makes it difficult to read. I'm not sure if my kids will have the patience to get past the first few chapters because of this.