Ruby's web by Ellen Van Neerven

Ruby is a young aboriginal girl in her first year at high school.  She is facing her own insecurities after her cousin, who was more like a sister and her best friend, distances herself and isolates Ruby.  Ruby is left alone to navigate the rules and hierarchies of the school yard and confront the racism and bullying from some of her peers.  This is not just a story about bullying but the serious impacts that verbal and online bullying can have and the consequences for the bullied person.  At the same time as Ruby is facing this, her family is focused on a beloved family member who is sick and needs care and support, forcing Ruby to give up her room, causing her more angst and making it harder for her to talk or share with her family what is going on at school.

As the bullying continues online, Ruby is faced with a choice, and her actions will have far reaching consequences that expose the discrimination and bullying within the school that goes so much deeper and requires more than a band aid fix to solve.

Ruby’s Web is an excellent story about the identity, self-worth and standing up for what is right, but is also showed the impacts of racism, discrimination, bullying and what it means to be indigenous in an honest, relatable way that readers will appreciate.  It is a sobering reminder that Cyberbullying persists, the consequences of it and that band aid fixes merely stop the bullied from coming forward.  This story is given a positive spin by the involvement of Ruby’s teacher and her family, and I think this will resonate with the reader too.

This is a book that would work best as an independent reader but could also be used in a classroom setting.  I would recommend this book to any reader who is looking for a real story with a positive ending.  

Themes: Bullying, Racism, Discrimation, Family, Friendship, Cyberbullying, Identity, Self-worth.

Mhairi Alcorn