Ruby on the Outside

Ruby visits her mother in prison each week with her aunt, but she does not know why her mother was incarcerated when Ruby was five. Keeping people at a distance has helped her cope, so she has never had a close friend. The summer before sixth grade, she meets Margalit and wants to be truthful about her mother. That wish is complicated by missing information and by Ruby’s fear of a connection to Margalit’s brother’s death.