REALLY RUBIE

Stuck at sleepaway camp without her best friend, a young tween finds herself.

Eleven-year-old Rubie Fox and her best friend, Riley Swisher, are ready to have the best summer ever at Camp Pineview, an all-girls sleepaway camp in Vermont. Together, they create the TUCE (“The Ultimate Camp Experience”) TRUCE: a list of five things they’ll do together. But when Riley breaks her ankle, Rubie must go to camp alone. Riley makes her promise not to do anything on their list—which includes common camp activities like “make friendship bracelets” and “eat s’mores by a fire.” At camp, everyone seems to already know each other, and Rubie’s struggles to find common interests only emphasize Riley’s absence. A bedtime pep talk from Jim the Duck, her beloved stuffed chicken, inspires Rubie to set a goal: Make one friend and turn this experience into something positive. Enter Eliza Sparrow, a talented comic artist who shares not only Rubie’s loves of art and grilled cheese but also has divorced parents and feels completely lost at camp. They become fast friends, but soon Rubie’s TUCE TRUCE promise rears its ugly head, and she feels stuck in the middle. Hijinks ensue, and Rubie learns how to navigate jealousy, embarrassment, honesty, and being true to yourself. Rubie’s funny and relatable musings, formatted as a diary with animated black-and-white doodles, will appeal to fans of series like Liz Montague’s Camp Frenemies and Marissa Moss’ Amelia’s Notebook. Main characters present white.

Humorous, frank, and guaranteed to reassure.