"Ruby's Wish"

Title: "Ruby's Wish"
Author: Shirin Yim Bridges
Illustrator: Sophie Blackall
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc., 2002
Genre: Multicultural
Grade: 2-3

Ruby was one of the one hundred children. Her name was Ruby because she always wore red. If her mother made her wear somber colors, she still wore red ribbons in her hair. One day the children were practicing calligraphy and her grandfather saw that her sheet was more beautiful than all the others so he applauded her for it. One day Ruby was asked to write a poem and she impressed her teacher as well as her grandfather, but her grandfather was worried about what the poem said so he asked her about it. She explained that it was because she didn't want to be like the other girls and just get married, but she wanted to go to a university. On New Years Day, Ruby received a letter from a university saying that "they would be proud to accept Ruby as one of their very first female students." Ruby got her wish and the author knows all this because Ruby is her grandmother.

I thought this book was so cute. I loved it because here is this little girl who wants to go to a university and wanted to be different from all the others. She didn't care what the customs were, she just wanted to be her own individual. The pictures in this book were amazing. It seemed as if I was actually there in the picture with Ruby seeing the same things she was seeing. The illustrations for this book were done on gouache on Arches hot-pressed paper. This book definitely an example of a good multicultural book. The culture shows that of China and how the customs don't allow girls to be schooled and especially for them to go to a university. I think this would be written as an insider's perspective because Ruby is Bridges' grandmother.

I would definitely use this book in my classroom to show my students that it is okay to be different and not dress or do what the others do or what others expect of you. I could have them to compare this book to a book from our culture and see how they differ in what women are allowed to do and not to do.