Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything by: Lenore Look (Realistic Fiction)

Ruby is a second grader who goes through an adjustment in her life while her aunt, uncle, and cousin emigrate from China to move in with her and her family.  Ruby helps to welcome her cousin, Flying Duck, into her new school but sometimes feels jealous of her.  She struggles to maintain a friendship with her next door neighbor, Emma, and finds a new dog that her mother desperately wants to get rid of.  Ruby helps her class understand the best ways to communicate with deaf people since Flying Duck is deaf and is in her class.  Flying Duck has a hard time adjusting to the new country, but Ruby learns sign language to help make her feel more accepted and welcome.  She loves learning new things and her life is full of excitement.  Ruby sets goals for herself and sticks to them, such as learning how to swim.

I would use this book in the classroom as a read aloud if there was a new student that joined our class.  Ruby does a terrific job of welcoming Flying Duck and the book would demonstrate how to make other people feel welcome when they are new.  The students would be able to relate to Ruby and make connections to her life and the things she goes through on a day to day basis.  I would also use this book to emphasize the importance of accepting people from diverse cultures.  In the story, Emma calls Flying Duck an “alien,” and Ruby points out on several occasions that different is not wrong, it is just different.  I would use this to highlight the importance of understanding cultural differences.  I would ask students to write down words or phrases that contain unfamiliar words or words that they think are related to Flying Duck’s Chinese customs.  After the story was read, I would go through Ruby’s Amazing Glossary and Guide to Important Words at the end of the book to see if any of the words matched the ones they wrote down.  I would also use this book to talk about differences in every person, whether it is deafness or needing to wear glasses, and discuss ways to help make everybody feel accepted, even if they look or act different.

AR Book Finder Book Level 3.8