Description
Ruby is starting year 7 at a new school. Her cousin Amber used to be her best friend, but she has started hanging out with the cool kids and pretends she doesn’t know Ruby anymore. Ruby dreads school every day. At the same time, the whole country is also debating the referendum for a First Nations Voice to Parliament, and Ruby is facing more and more nasty comments online from her classmates. The gap between the internet and real life is getting thinner and thinner.
Ruby’s Web is about how to seek help when dealing with online bullying and racism, the connections that the internet makes possible, and the power of using your voice.
Review
Set at the time of the referendum for a First Nations Voice to Parliament, Ruby has just started high school in Little Creek, a small Australian town. She is an Indigenous girl, whose Nan is an elder. Her dad died earlier, and she lives with her hard-working Mum who is a nurse and always seems short of time and money. She grew up as BFF’s with her cousin Amber, but lately she has ditched Ruby to get in with the cooler kids.
Ruby has her poetry but not much else to help her feel okay when the bullying, both online and in person intensifies. Ruby notices other people getting bullied and decides that something needs to be done. But with her Nan’s recent cancer diagnosis and treatment should she stir things up? Or should she just put up with her life, especially as Amber is part of the bullying?
Tackling the important issues of racism and bullying, and particularly how it can happen both in person and online, Ruby sums it up best when she asks ”why and when did [they] decide they didn’t like me? Why had they decided I was ugly and uncool or that I wasn’t deserving of even the most basic form of respect? ... Why was nothing off limits ... even the colour of my skin, my nan and the death of my dad?”
These questions pose real starting points for discussions on these issues, making it an ideal classroom novel for lower secondary students. There is also nothing within the storyline that would exclude it from being used in upper primary school.
