Free as a bird

Short-listed for the 2010 Governor General x2019;s Award for Children x2019;s Literature, the 2010 Snow Willow Award and the 2011 CLA Young Adult Book Award

Born with Down syndrome, Ruby Jean Sharp comes from a time when being a developmentally disabled person could mean growing up behind locked doors and barred windows and being called names like "retard" and "moron." When Ruby Jean x2019;s caregiver and loving grandmother dies, her mother takes her to Woodlands School in New Westminster, British Columbia, and rarely visits.

As Ruby Jean herself says: "Can x2019;t say why they called it a school x2013; a school x2019;s a place you go for learnin an then after you get to go home. I never learnt much bout ledders and numbers, an I sure never got to go home."

It x2019;s here in an institution that opened in 1878 and was originally called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum that Ruby Jean learns to survive isolation, boredom, and every kind of abuse. Just when she can hardly remember if she x2019;s ever been happy, she learns a lesson about patience and perseverance from an old crow.