Ruby Lost and Found

Ruby feels lost during the summer after seventh grade. Her friends are distant from her, her parents are mad at her, her sister is leaving home for college, and her beloved grandfather has passed away. She had to stay with her grieving grandmother the whole summer and go to the senior center with her every day. It surely doesn't sound like a fun summer. But unexpectedly, Ruby found friendship with a new boy in town, Liam, whose mother died, and he takes his grandmother to the senior center every day during the summer. However; Ruby felt anxious when she noticed that her grandmother was getting more forgetful plus the news of a favorite local bakery facing closing delima. Through the need to support her grandmother and the desire to help the bakery stay open, Ruby found a new purpose in her summer. She regained her confidence, found ways to help people, and reconnected with her family.

The story is about being thirteen, an awkward age when adults still think of you as a child, yet expect you to behave responsibly. It is an age when you want everything to remain the same as a child, but changes come to you like constant waves. How do you adjust yourself to all the changes? Ruby faced different kinds of loss including the death of her beloved grandfather, cooling off with one her best friends, losing her sister to college, and seeing the closing down of her favorite bakery where she shared so many fond memories with her grandfather..But through Ruby's compassionate nature, she discovered new relationships and reconnected with old friends and family members. I can understand the bonding relationships with grandparents in Chinese culture. Many young people at this age go through changes with friendships and experience difficulties with relationships with their parents at home. It is a beautiful story about how to make an effort to maintain relationships and treasure them.