Love Ruby Lavender - Tapa blanda

She's resourceful, she's feisty. She's in for some big surprises. Meet Miss Ruby Lavender! Woe is Ruby Lavender. She used to have a fun life, until her Yoo-Hoo-drinking, pink muumuu-wearing, best friend of a grandmother up and left for Hawaii to spend the summer with her new (smelly) grandbaby. Now Ruby is stuck in boring old Halleluia, Mississippi, reading to her chickens, sweeping floors at the general store (torture) and being tormented by the curly-haired, tip-tapping Melba Jane. In letter after letter, nine-year-old Ruby pours out her heart to her grandmother. But there is one thing that Ruby cannot tell even her - the very same thing that makes Ruby take the long way home every single time and that makes her hate Melba Jane more than anyone.

Deborah Wiles spent her childhood summers in a small Mississippi town with her family, including a wacky grandmother who really did go to Hawaii and who loved to wear flip-flops. Deborah has worked as a journalist and radio commentator, and she currently teaches writing and oral history workshops for children. She lives with her family in Frederick, Maryland where she tends her garden, makes baking powder biscuits and drinks plenty of root beer. She has never stolen a chicken... yet. Love, Ruby Lavender is her first novel.