Books with author Lois Ruby

In a new town, Dovi’s family befriends a young boy who was abandoned at their restaurant Dovi Chandler collects yearbooks. She has them from all over the country: mementos of every time her parents uprooted her to a new town, and a new crackpot business venture. They’ve managed apartment houses, tried to save failing bookstores, even sold Tupperware, but all it’s ever gotten them is debt and a new yearbook for Dovi to add to the pile. It’s not until her parents take over the Pig-Out Inn that Dovi feels ready to put down roots. It’s just another truck-stop diner, but to Dovi it’s home—and she soon discovers that she and her family aren’t the only ones living there. Hiding out in 1 of the cabins is a 9-year-old boy named Tag. He was stashed there by his father, who is negotiating a painful divorce. Tag is an entrepreneurial genius, and his brilliant business schemes will offer Dovi and her mother a chance to make the Pig-Out Inn a success—and learn the true meaning of family.

It's 1939, and the Shpann family has escaped their home in hopes of a better life in occupied China. Ilse, her brother, and their parents are shocked at the small size of their new lodgings, in which they practically live on top of each other and their neighbors; only then does Ilse start to realize that their life here as stateless refugees will be far more harsh than expected. Their family strains to make end meet as her mother finds only part-time work in a bakery, while her musician father cannot find work at all. Ilse soon learns that her brother, Erich, has joined REACT, an underground resistance organization that masterminds sabotage missions and smuggles information. She fears for her brother's safety, but craves adventure herself and talks her way into running occasional missions, as a gutsy if unlikely spy. Life grows tighter and tighter for the Shpanns as they are forced to relocate to Shanghai's Jewish ghetto, but the family always manages to take solace in one another--that is until a mother's secret threatens to tear them all apart. In this gripping historical novel from Lois Ruby, a young gril struggles to grow up while her family struggles just to survive as European Jews against the unforgiving and alien backdrop of World War II China.

My Side of the Story is completely unique approach to historical fiction. Read the story of one youngster's life in turbulent times, then flip the book and find out first hand how another child reacts to the same events - with very different feelings and results! 12 year old Elias is one of the first people to arrive in Jamestown as the English colonists land on America's east coast. Elias is an apprentice surgeon, and is both excited and a little frightened at the new life he is starting out. Initally the new arrivals are friendly with native Pamunkee tribes, but when the settlers establish new ways, friction and tough times result. In the woods Elias comes across a young Pamunkee boy who only speaks in the native tongue. But the boy's sister speaks some English and flax-coloured hair. Elias is intrigued by this girl and begins a friendship with her, a friendship that will be sorely tested by the conflicts of the natives and colonists...13 year old Sacahocan is a bright Pamunkee Indian girl. She witnesses the arrival of the fleet of English ships and is anxious like her fellow tribespeople. Her life is at an important stage - she is soon to be married to Kecuttannowas, and the preparations for the ceremony are under way. However, fate intervenes. Not only are the colonists causing trouble for her people, she has also met a young English boy Elias who she likes spending time with. What will happen when events outside her control force Sacahocan to decide between her logic and her feelings?

When Lila and her family visit Laurel Oaks Plantation in Louisiana, her parents and brother scoff at the claim that the house is haunted. But secretly, Lila suspects there are ghostly presences willing to communicate with her, and her alone. One spirit eager to tell her story is Daphne, a slave girl at Laurel Oaks in the 1840s, who was blamed for the poisoning deaths of two girls and their mother. Daphne’s spirit senses that Lila is the very person she’s been waiting for, the one who can prove her innocence so her spirit can rest at long last. Shifting back and forth from Lila’s world in the present to Daphne’s world in the past, the true story of what really happened that fateful night finally comes to light. Laurel Oaks is a thinly disguised version of the legendary Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana, which is on the Smithsonian's list of the ten most haunted places in America. This novel was inspired by the author's visit to the plantation and her experiences there.