RUBY ELECTRIC

A budding screenwriter, full of dreams and longing, finds a place for herself on the edge of the drainage ditch that was once the Los Angeles River. Aside from writing movies, 12-year-old Ruby Miller’s primary goal is to find her father, who disappeared from her life five years ago. Her pursuit of her goals is somewhat hampered by the gentle demands of her mother and little brother, and greatly hampered by the unwanted interest shown in her by her two loser classmates, Big Skinny and Mouse. In the way of things Hollywood, plot elements from Ruby, Big Skinny, and Mouse’s apprehension for vandalism, little brother Pete’s loss of his beloved mammoth puppet, their prissy landlady’s determination to clean up her little part of the world, and her mother’s new and alarming interest in her podiatrist boss coalesce in a marvelously Andy Rooney–esque climax. Punctuated by snippets of Ruby’s scripts, the present-tense narrative positively fizzes with emotion and goodwill. The happy ending is just honest enough not to be pure Hollywood, and thus is all the more satisfying. Thumbs up. (Fiction. 10-12)