Free as a Bird - Dundurn

Free as a Bird

Published February 2010

Description

Short-listed for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature, the 2010 Snow Willow Award and the 2011 CLA Young Adult Book Award

Born with Down syndrome, Ruby Jean Sharp comes from a time when being a developmentally disabled person could mean growing up behind locked doors and barred windows and being called names like "retard" and "moron." When Ruby Jean’s caregiver and loving grandmother dies, her mother takes her to Woodlands School in New Westminster, British Columbia, and rarely visits.

As Ruby Jean herself says: "Can’t say why they called it a school – a school’s a place you go for learnin an then after you get to go home. I never learnt much bout ledders and numbers, an I sure never got to go home."

It’s here in an institution that opened in 1878 and was originally called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum that Ruby Jean learns to survive isolation, boredom, and every kind of abuse. Just when she can hardly remember if she’s ever been happy, she learns a lesson about patience and perseverance from an old crow.

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Contributors

Gina McMurchy-Barber

Gina McMurchy-Barber is the author of Free as a Bird, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and the Peggy Henderson Adventure Series. Gina lives in Surrey, B.C.

Book Details

ePub
February 2010
-
168 pp
9781459716537
Paperback
February 2010
5x8 in
168 pp
9781554884476
ePub
February 2010
-
168 pp
9781770705791