An elephant glossary and Castelao’s charming, illustrated guide to elephant body language help immerse readers in Ruby’s world. The unexpected arrival of someone from Ruby’s past life on the savanna revives memories both warmly nostalgic and deeply traumatic.
Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia.
Luckily, she can confide in her Uncle Ivan, who is next door in Gorilla World, and Uncle Bob, the dog who lives nearby with human friend Julia. She’s apprehensive about her Tuskday, a rite of passage for young elephants when she’ll give a speech in front of the rest of the herd. In this follow-up to 2020’s The One and Only Bob, Ruby the elephant is still living at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary. Readers questioning their sense of belonging could find this to be exactly what they need.Ī disjointed yet sincere story about family, Judaism, and finding oneself. The mix of prose, poetry, and recipes is original, but the execution leads to a disjointed and choppy read. However, Hannah’s parents’ constant negativity about Judaism-her father frequently “jokes” in ways that read like microaggressions, and the context for her mother’s hostile comments is not revealed until the end-will be deeply uncomfortable for some readers, though the novel does end with a positive message of love and acceptance. Her experience is an authentic portrayal of struggling to find oneself through religion even when parents may not be supportive.
Hannah secretly learns Hebrew and studies her Torah portion in six months, and her rapid mastery of the language feels unrealistic. So, Hannah schemes with Grandma Mimi and Aunt Yael, a rabbi and her mother’s estranged sister, to prepare for her own bat mitzvah. Unfortunately, her parents-especially her mother-vehemently disagree. When Hannah attends her best friend Shira’s bat mitzvah, she finally finds the place where she feels she belongs, and she decides to have her very own bat mitzvah. Grandma Mimi, her mother’s mother, is Jewish, so according to Jewish law she must be too, right? Even if her White father, who was raised Catholic, and her nonreligious mother don’t seem to think so.
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