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    Ruby Holler
    Ruby Holler
    Ruby Holler
    Ebook225 pages3 hours

    Ruby Holler

    By Sharon Creech

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    From Sharon Creech, the Newbery Medal winning author of Walk Two Moons, comes a heartwarming adventure about finding family, and a home, when you least expect it.

    Ruby Holler is a Carnegie Medal-winning novel, and with its quirky protagonists and exciting journey, captures the imaginations of readers of all ages.  

    Brother and sister Dallas and Florida are the “trouble twins.” In their short thirteen years, they’ve passed through countless foster homes, only to return to their dreary orphanage, Boxton Creek Home.

    Run by the Trepids, a greedy and strict couple, Boxton Creek seems impossible to escape. When Mr. Trepid informs the twins that they’ll be helping old Tiller and Sairy Morey go on separate adventures, Dallas and Florida are suspicious.

    As the twins adjust to the natural beauty of the outdoors, help the Tillers prepare for their adventures, and foil a robbery, their ultimate search for freedom leads them home to Ruby Holler.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061972508
    Author

    Sharon Creech

    Sharon Creech has written twenty-one books for young people and is published in over twenty languages. Her books have received awards in both the U.S. and abroad, including the Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Honor for The Wanderer, and Great Britain’s Carnegie Medal for Ruby Holler. Before beginning her writing career, Sharon Creech taught English for fifteen years in England and Switzerland. She and her husband now live in Maine, “lured there by our grandchildren,” Creech says. www.sharoncreech.com

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    Reviews for Ruby Holler

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Dallas and Florida - the Trouble Twins, as the couple who run the orphanage call them - are taken in by an older couple, who want young companions on the canoe and bird-watching trips they're planning. The twins are slow to trust adults, since they've been placed in several homes with people who have mistreated and exploited them and then sent them back to the orphanage, where they don't fare much better. But Tiller and Sairy (the older couple with whom they are now staying) are kind and loving and patient, and they live in Ruby Holler, a utopia of woods and streams and wilderness, and between the people and the setting, the kiddos learn to trust and love.I normally really enjoy Creech's books, but this one was a little too much: the kids were a little too exasperating, the mean adults a little too cardboardy-mean, the good adults a little too quirky in their niceness, and the ending a little too pat. Still, the story itself is interesting enough to have kept me engaged and helped me look past the saccharine parts.
    • 5/5
      Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech is realistic fiction at its best! Dallas and his sister, Florida, are twins who have had a very rough life. They live in an orphanage run by the Trepids, a couple who can’t stand children. The Trepids have a gazillion rules about all the things kids can’t do while they live there. Dallas and Florida get in a lot of trouble because they're always breaking some rule or another. Other families that have taken Florida and Dallas in for a while, but they are too much trouble for everyone and end up being returned to the Trepids. One day an older couple named Tiller and Sairy arrives at the orphanage to get two kids to go on vacation with them, and they select Dallas and Florida. They bring them home to Ruby Holler, which is out in the middle of nowhere and filled with animals, trees, rivers, hills and all kinds of wonderful outdoor sights. Will Dallas and Florida change their ways? Will Sairy and Tiller be able to handle the destruction that comes with the “terrible two”? Will the Trepids finally be free of Dallas and Florida?

      I highly recommend this feel good book. I laughed my way through it and can still hear Florida’s voice ringing in my ears (maggoty, wretched, etc.). Lots of short chapters- and although it looks like a long book, it's a really fast read! I would recommend this story to kids in third grade and up. The characters are memorable and the story is such fun!
    • 5/5
      My daughter said this is one of her favorite books and Sharon Creech is one of her favorite authors. I had already read “Walk Two Moons” but that didn’t set me up proper for this one. Walk Two Moons has big questions, like karma, parental loss, parental absence, and lots of death. Ruby Holler is about a brother and sister, two grandparents in a cabin, and evil villains who run an orphanage.It reminded me of a female Roald Dahl book + Gilmore Girls/Switched at Birth. There’s all this quaint country stuff (living in the woods, rural lifestyle, hiking and boating) with a little spitz of magic. There are some problems with choppiness and loose ends (the evil orphanage owner gets a rather pithy comeuppance for his misdeeds). It’s like "Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events" if it was shown on CMT.
    • 5/5
      Sighhhhhh. Great. Yet sad but awesome. Sighhhhhh. I wish I could know what happens next.
    • 3/5
      Dallas and Florida were abandoned at an unlicensed orphanage. Now 13, they are again fostered out. Should they trust the promises made by this new set of parents?I hope pre-teen readers respond well to cliche characters since all the adults they meet, except for Tiller and Sairy are overdone portraits of meanness and greed. Even 'Z', who apparently believes he has some connection to the twins, is shown as an indecisive loser, altho the astute reader might wonder what mental disability has claimed him.But, my adult questions aside, all's well that ends well, and the story with plenty of conversation and short chapter adventures were much enjoyed by my son.
    • 5/5
      Dakota & Florida are dubbed the Trouble Twins by the couple who operate the orphanage. Everyone who has fostered them has returned them to the home. Why would this couple be any different? A wonderful story of learning to love & live & trust. One of Creech's best, imho.
    • 3/5
      How a good author makes boring story interesting. It is a bit dreamy. I liked dialogues.
    • 1/5
      Oh joy! A story about maltreated orphans who just want someone to love them. You almost never see one of those!

      Why this book has won the regard of writers such as Pullman mystifies me. The story is hackneyed. The bad guys are such blueprint made to order cretins and the good guys full of such homespun folksy goodness as to be cringe worthy. One of the motifs of the book are the recipes that the fatherly Tiller concoct, getting-over-being-an-orphan stew, welcome-home bacon. What I could have used is a platter of why-the-hell-am-I-reading- this corn pone.
    • 3/5
      This is about twins who live in an orphanage and are considered troubled. They are invited to the a magical place called Ruby Holler by an older couple. This sets off a series of adventures and discovery. It isn't my favorite book by Sharon Creech, but I think it's worth reading.
    • 5/5
      This book was AMZING! I loved how both of the characters have completely different personalities, but love each other so much!
    • 3/5
      I liked this book, although it was a little bit sappy and badly written. I think that the facts did not really click in the end, and you never found out who the main characters' mother was. The main characters, Florida and Dallas were orphans, and their mother had left the twins on the orphanage step when they were babies. Dallas was delivered to the orphanage step in a crate that said 'Dallas, Texas' and Florida was delivered in a crate that said 'Florida Oranges'. That was were they got their names. They were also "fondly" nicknamed 'the trouble twins', by their many adoptive parents. I recommend this book to all 9,10 and 11-year-olds.
    • 3/5
      Dallas and Florida have lived their entire lives at this horrible orphanage or in a series of appalling foster homes. So when they are sent to live with elderly Tiller and Sairy in Ruby Holler, they are expecting the worse, and make plans to runaway at the first opportunity. But slowly, slowly, the good food and the understanding and patient Sairy and Tiller begin to break down the walls that Dallas and Florida have built around them. As the older couple help the kids, it is apparent that the kids are helping them also. There is excellent character development in the novel. And, although this whole story sounds somewhat sappy, it isn't...mainly because neither Dallas or Florida, nor Sairy or Tiller are the type of characters that would fit in a syrupy, sweet kind of novel. They are all a bit cantankerous and set in their ways. However, as much as I tried, I just couldn't quite get into this story or form much attachment to the characters. There were 66 short chapters, most 3 to 4 pages, but several were just 2 pages. The chapters seemed to skip around to different people and places, and this led to a choppy, disjointed story. Florida just did not seem like a real person to me...something seemed off regarding her dialogue. And finally, there were several plot elements that were just left hanging, and not resolved. So all in all, this was somewhat of a disappointing read for me.
    • 4/5
       In this book Dallas and Florida are wanting to get out of the putrid orphanage.
    • 5/5
       You are now entering Ruby Holler, the one and only Ruby
    • 4/5
      This book is an adventurous book Florida and her brother Dallas were raised in an orphanige together. But they are still having a hard life until they meet a couple going on separete trips and the couple want to bring Florida and Dallas .It is a great story that you will love.
    • 5/5
      In this book Dallas and Florida are the two main children characters.The main adult characters are Tiller and Sairy. Dallas and Florida are living in the Boxton Creek Children's Home. Tiller and Sairy come to Boxton looking for some children to accompany them on their trips. Dallas and Florida are chosen to go. Tiller and Sairy live in Ruby Holler. Ruby Holler is a sunny place where there are creeks, trees and animals everywhere.
    • 5/5
       Florida and her twin brother Dallis have lived in the orphanage all their life. One day an old copal, Tiller and Sairy, Take in the twins for a vacation. They deiced to take a practice run but that was a bad idea.
    • 4/5
      13 year old twins Florida and Dallas are orphans at an orphanage with people there who are not very nice to them. Things change though when they are brought to a house with very nice people who are taking them on adventures...Do they stay with them? Or runaway?
    • 5/5
      I think that this is a good book cause it talks about how they get in trouble and what they do
    • 4/5
      Grade: 3-5Genre: FictionThemes: Family, Hardships, Perseverance Dallas and Florida start out in an orphanage run by the hateful Trepids. They have been sent to live with many families throughout their short lives but have always been sent back. That is, until the meet Tiller and Sairy, an old couple who bring them to stay in Ruby Holler. Trust begins to develop between the four and in time the begin to become a family. I did not understand the connection between "Z" and the children. i want to know if he is their dad or not? The book never really develops that plot line except to leave it in the air at the end of the story. I was left wanting to know about that relationship. I do know that the children will be well cared for and have finally found a home. I would use this book as a read aloud and discuss resilience with my kids and how there are rainbows in clouds.
    • 5/5
      This book is really good because it talks about a couple of kids who move from foster home to foster home. Finally they stay at one home and gets to know these people.They start liking eachother and by the end they are a happy family.
    • 5/5
      This book is about two twins who are orphans and they have spent their whole life being carted around to different foster parents. Who all turn about to be unbeilivably cruel. Untill the find the perfect foster parents.
    • 4/5
      A sweet and touching story about finding love and family.
    • 5/5
      Tiller and Sairy are the most amazing parents and it takes Florida and Dallas a while to trust them but they fall in love with Ruby Holler and eventually trust and love Tiller and Sairy. The meals/desserts named after events are fun (we've started doing that at our house too). I read this book and then, 2 years later, listened to the audio version and enjoyed it both times.
    • 3/5
      This book tells the story of twins who were left behind at an "orphanage" run by a disreputable husband and wife who called them trouble. They think that perhaps they will always live in this horrible place where punishment is the norm. Until they move to Ruby Holler to live with an elderly couple. They learn that parenting can be good.
    • 5/5
      very adventurous, mysterious too
    • 5/5
      A really good book that lets you dream about what happens in the end.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of Dallas and Florida, two foster children, who are afraid to trust anyone after the homes they've lived in. They get taken in by an eccentric old couple who find themselves more and more taken with the two siblings. Excellent novel!
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book in adventure to mischeif and team work.
    • 5/5
      This book made me feel the pain of the twins, and their laughter, and happiness.

    Book preview

    Ruby Holler - Sharon Creech

    CHAPTER 1

    THE SILVER BIRD

    Dallas leaned far out of the window, his eyes fixed on a bird flying lazily in the distance. Sun slanted through the clouds above, as if a spotlight were aimed on the bird.

    A silver bird, Dallas thought. A magical silver bird.

    The bird turned suddenly, veering south over the small town of Boxton, toward the faded yellow building and the window from which Dallas leaned. Dallas stretched his arm out. Here! he called. Over here!

    The bird swooped toward him and then rose up over the building, high, high into the air, over the alley and the train tracks and the dried-up creek. Dallas watched it rise on the air currents over one brown hill and then another, until it disappeared.

    He tried to follow it in his mind. He imagined it flying on until it spied a narrow green valley, a scooped-out basin with a creek looping and winding its way through the center. He pictured it swooping down from the sky into this basin in the hills, to this place where cool breezes drifted through the trees, and where the creek was so clear that every stone on its bottom was visible.

    Maybe the silver bird had flown home.

    Get out of that window! a voice shouted from below. No leaning out of windows!

    Dallas leaned a little farther out and called down to Mr. Trepid. Did you see that silver bird?

    Get out of that window, or you’re going to join your sister down here pulling weeds, Mr. Trepid threatened.

    Dallas spotted his sister, Florida, inching her way along the sidewalk, wrenching clumps of weeds and grass and dirt from the ground.

    Putrid weeds, Florida snarled, heaving a clod of dirt over her shoulder.

    Dallas watched as the clod landed on Mr. Trepid’s back and as the man scuttled over to Florida and whacked her on the head. Dallas wished the silver bird would return and snare Mr. Trepid and carry him high up over the town and then drop him, splat, in the middle.

    CHAPTER 2

    THE BOXTON CREEK HOME

    Boxton was a tired town, a neglected place that looked as if it was in danger of collapsing in on itself. A tangle of old homes and shacks clustered around small stores and buildings that had seen better days. One of these buildings was the Boxton Creek Home for Children, a ramshackle house that tilted toward the train tracks and hills beyond. In this building lived the bungling managers, Mr. and Mrs. Trepid; their assistant, Morgan; and thirteen children, ranging in age from six months to thirteen years.

    The two oldest children in the Boxton Creek Home were twins, Dallas and Florida. They were tall for their age, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with sturdy frames and a rough-edged and unkempt look about them. Dallas was the quieter of the two and the one more inclined to daydreaming, while Florida was loud and squirmy, with her mouth full of words bursting out, and her face full of expression, flashing from surprise to disgust in an instant.

    The managers of the Home, Mr. and Mrs. Trepid, were middle-aged, cranky and tired, and growing stiff and cold as winter-bound trees. They believed in rules, and their rules were posted on doorways and in hallways and above each child’s bed. There were general rules and kitchen rules, bathroom rules and stairway rules, basement rules and outside rules, upstairs rules and downstairs rules, clothing rules, washing rules, cleaning rules, rules upon rules upon rules.

    If we didn’t have rules, Mr. Trepid liked to say,everything would be chaos.

    If we didn’t have rules, his wife would say, these children would eat us alive.

    Since Dallas and Florida had lived in the Boxton Creek Home longer than any of the other children there, they knew all the rules. They also knew the punishments for disobeying the rules, and they knew them well, because they had broken every rule in the Boxton Creek Home. Many times.

    How can we live every day of our lives without running or shouting or throwing or talking or dropping or spilling? Dallas had once asked Mr. Trepid.

    Thinking Corner. Two hours, was Mr. Trepid’s reply.

    As he sat in the dark corner of the basement, Dallas imagined a broad field rimmed with trees, and in that imaginary field he ran and shouted and threw sticks and mud, and when he was tired, he lay down in the green grass and felt himself getting smaller and smaller until he was a little baby lying in the grass, and someone with a sweet face leaned down and wrapped him in a white blanket.

    When Florida was caught breaking one of the rules, she was more likely to argue and, as a result, to earn extra punishments. She could not sit still, could not walk when her feet wanted to run, and so on a fairly regular basis, she’d be running down the hall and Mrs. Trepid’s long skinny arm would dart out from a doorway, snare Florida, and lead her to the nearest copy of The Rules.

    What does that say? Mrs. Trepid demanded.

    Florida squinted at the sign. ‘No stupid running.’

    It does not say that, Mrs. Trepid said, urging Florida’s face closer to the sign. Read it again.

    No stinking stupid running.

    Down to the basement. Two hours in the Thinking Corner.

    That’s stupid.

    Followed by two hours of floor scrubbing.

    Putrid.

    Followed by two hours of weed pulling.

    Dallas and Florida had racked up hundreds of hours in the Thinking Corner, the damp, dark, cobwebbed corner of the basement. They had worn the scratchy I’ve Been Bad shirts, shoveled manure, crawled across acres of fields pulling weeds. They had also peeled potatoes, scrubbed pots and floors, washed windows, and hauled boxes and broken furniture.

    Good hard thinking and good hard work never hurt anybody, Mr. Trepid would say. Mr. Trepid, who was a short, squat man with an awkward walk like a crab scuttling across the ocean floor, did not particularly like thinking or working himself, but he firmly believed that these were good things for children.

    The Home was a misfit operation, lost over the years in a larger system. Funds dribbled in, but social workers no longer came to check on the children; health workers and building inspectors no longer came to inspect the building. There was no longer a doctor on staff, or secretarial help. It was run solely by the Trepids, with the help of their overworked assistant, Morgan, who referred to herself as Chief Gopher.

    Still, the Boxton Creek Home was as much a home as Dallas and Florida knew. On the front of the building, faded yellow paint curled in strips, like peeling skin. Behind the main building, a string of smaller cubes had been added in a crooked path out the back. Dallas thought it looked like a string of mismatched boxcars laid end to end, and Florida thought it looked like a dragon, with its huge mouth at the front door, waiting to swallow up children who entered it.

    When children first came to the Boxton Creek Home, they stayed in one of the bigger rooms in front. But gradually, as the months and years went by, if they’d not been placed elsewhere, they were shunted farther and farther back, to the dark, low-ceilinged, airless rooms at the tail of the house.

    Rotation, Mr. Trepid called it. Rotation!

    Children came and went. Some were taken in by foster families or adopted. A few ran away but were inevitably returned. One died in his bed, whispering, Who am I? Who am I? And although Mr. and Mrs. Trepid had tried their best to move Dallas and Florida out (or rather, as Mrs. Trepid explained it to them, to find you a lovely home), the twins were always brought back to the big front door by exasperated adults.

    Trouble twins, these exasperated adults would say. Nothing but trouble.

    In turn, Dallas and Florida had come to think of most adults as trouble grown-ups, for that had been their experience, that most grown-ups they’d encountered were short-tempered, impatient, and quick to punish. They had no way of knowing that there were foster parents and adopting parents who were kind and loving and generous and forgiving. In the narrow world of Dallas and Florida, an adult was someone to escape.

    Over the years, Dallas and Florida had been squeezed toward the back of the Boxton Creek Home until they’d come to the end of it, where two cubicles huddled side by side. In each was a narrow, lumpy bed, a slim dresser rammed up close to the bed, and a closet. A single bare bulb dangled from each ceiling.

    At night, Dallas and Florida listened to the wail of freight trains making their way through Boxton and on to … to where? To other places, far and wide. To beautiful places. Peaceful ones. Friendly ones.

    Dallas and Florida had a plan. They would not be in the Boxton Creek Home forever. They were going to jump on the night freight train and ride out of town. Soon.

    CHAPTER 3

    RUBY HOLLER

    Twenty miles from Boxton was Ruby Holler, a lush, green hidden valley with only two cabins nestled in its depths. The cabin at the far end was inhabited by a man who lived on his own and who kept to himself. In the cabin in the middle of the holler lived a sixty-year-old man and his wife.

    One warm morning in June, the man and his wife sat on their porch swing.

    Same old view, the man grumbled. Same old sagging porch. Same old creaky swing.

    You’re pretty grouchy this morning, said his wife.

    I’m tired of hauling water and chopping wood.

    Do you think people are right, then? his wife asked. Should we move? Get a condo somewhere? Have electricity and heat and a washing machine and one of those air conditioner things?

    Her husband nodded. And a television, maybe. And a garage with one of those automatic doors.

    That sure would be different, his wife said.

    It sure would, the man agreed.

    A small gray bird swooped down from the sky and landed on the porch railing. It cocked its head at the couple, as if it were listening to them.

    CHAPTER 4

    MUSH

    Dallas and Florida sat at their usual places in the far corner of the narrow dining room in the Boxton Creek Home. They were not allowed to sit on the long benches with the other children, because the Trepids didn’t want the other children to learn any bad habits from Florida and Dallas. The Trepids would have preferred Dallas and Florida to be meek and cowed, like the others.

    Florida poked at the mush on her plate. Do you think there’s any real food in this glop?

    Might be, Dallas said. I think I spy a piece of meat stuff. He tentatively stabbed the chunk of meat, imagining that it was steak, the juiciest, best steak in the world.

    Well, I think it’s chopped-up cardboard, Florida said, and ground tree bark with a dash of hog’s blood thrown in for color.

    She caught the eye of the new girl on the end of the long bench and waved at her.

    Uh-oh, Dallas said, as he spotted Mr. Trepid slipping up behind Florida.

    Ow, Florida said. What’re you whacking my head for?

    Keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Trepid ordered.

    Dallas stared at Mr. Trepid ’s gold tooth. He imagined himself as a dentist, removing that gold tooth, pocketing it, and refitting Mr. Trepid with something else, maybe something red, maybe plastic, shaped like a fang.

    My hands are to myself, Florida told Mr. Trepid. Look, see how they’re attached to my arms. Quit whacking me on the head.

    I will quit whacking you on the head when you put your hands in your lap, where they’re supposed to be.

    Florida placed her hands in her lap, and when Mr. Trepid moved away, Dallas said, How are you going to eat, with your hands in your lap?

    Florida leaned forward and lapped at the mush with her tongue.

    Mr. Trepid returned in a flash.

    My hands are in my lap.

    Eat with your fork, Mr. Trepid ordered.

    Well, how am I supposed to do that if my hands are in my lap? Florida said.

    Dallas was eyeing his plate, trying not to move a muscle. If he laughed, Mr. Trepid would smack him.

    The new girl was staring at Florida and Mr. Trepid. Does he do that to everybody? she whispered to the boy next to her.

    The boy looked terrified. With one hand, he covered his mouth, and with the other, he gestured at the rules posted on the wall. The first rule in the dining room was No Talking.

    At seven thirty, the buzzer sounded. Dallas washed the last pan and tossed it on the shelf. To the palace, he said.

    Florida raced down the hall. To the grimy dark dungeon of the decrepit palace.

    Quit that running. Quit that shouting, Mrs. Trepid yelled. Get in your rooms.

    Down the hall they ran, zipping in and out of other children’s rooms. The other children laughed at Dallas and Florida, but quickly closed their doors after they’d passed. Laughing at Dallas and Florida was a serious offense, in the eyes of the Trepids.

    Once inside their rooms, Dallas and Florida each pried up a loose floorboard and deposited their takings from the kitchen: one nearly whole piece of bread and one raw potato each. It was always good to know that there was something under the boards, something to stave off hunger in the night.

    Later that night, Florida tossed and turned. She dreamed about the Hoppers and then woke up, mad at herself for letting the Hoppers into her dreams and now into her waking thoughts.

    She and Dallas were five years old when they were

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