Blog Post 11 - Multicultural Fiction - Ruby Finds a Worry by Tom Percival
The first book I chose is a multicultural fiction picture book called Ruby Finds a Worry by Tom Percival. In this story the main character Ruby is a happy little girl who is just happy to be herself. Then one day she finds a worry. At first the worry is small, shown by a yellow circle, but as the story goes on her worry gets bigger and bigger. One day, she meets a little boy who also had a worry. The two talked about their worries and then their worries went away. It is such a sweet way to show children that everyone worries and it is ok to talk about it.
Ruby Finds a Worry is a realistic fiction picture book. It is considered realistic fiction because it has a setting. The setting is anywhere Ruby goes: school, home, etc. The story has characterization because Ruby is a character who changes over time throughout the story. The story’s plot is about having a worry. Ruby has worries and it fits with the theme is that everyone has worries. This book is so appropriate for today’s world that children are living in.
One activity a teacher can do is have the children draw and write or label their own worries. They can then pair off with a partner and share their worry if they want to. Otherwise they can choose to share their worry with the teacher or keep the worry to themselves for now. It is their choice.
This is a wonderful and colorful story book that helps to open the conversation about worries with young children. In today’s world, many adults are worried and children are observant so they see the adults around them worried. Now, this of course can transfer to them and they might begin to worry. This book opens the door to having conversations with children and making them feel safe in sharing their own worries.
Other books written by Tom Percival are: Perfectly Norman, Ravis Roar, and many others that he wrote and illustrated. He has illustrated for other authors as well.
Great post! One activity I think would be a good option would be to have the students create their own journal where they may write their own worries into a private journal as they progress reading the book throughout. Another activity that could be done is having the student anonymously write down some of there worries on a sheet of paper and have the students listen to the worries called out as they are pulled out of the hat with there heads down and do a tally of each worry as they raise there hand if they also have that worry so the class could see others share the same worries and they should talk about it.
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