Little Ruby has quite the adventure every morning as she makes her way to school with her mom. She crosses a river full of crocodiles, passes a haunted house, confronts a tiger and braves a scary forest “full of mighty beasts. / They’re hunting around for tasty feasts. / They loom, they lurk behind the trees, / And call each other on the breeze.” Although her heart may falter, her rhyming narration never does, returning always to her refrain: “I must be brave, I must be strong.” Latimer’s acrylic paintings, augmented by watercolor pencil, depict a jaunty black mother-and-daughter pair, Ruby with two energetic pompom ponytails. She deftly modulates between mundane reality and Ruby’s imaginings, planting clues to the latter throughout—and leaving a little happy ambiguity at the end. Not wildly original, but nicely done. (Picture book. 4-7)
