Linzi Glass, Ruby Red

'In Ruby Winters' World, colour opens some doors and slams others shut'

This story is about a teenage girl called Ruby living in Johannesburg, South Africa in the middle of apartheid.

This book shows really well the problems of racism and prejudice that is not only faced by the black population, but also Ruby and her family.

Ruby lives in a wealthy, white area of South Africa but her parents sympathise with the blacks who are discriminated against by the apartheid rules. Her mother runs an art gallery supporting black artists and her father is involved with an underground organisation helping the blacks.

Ruby and her family must keep their activities secret in order to protect themselves and the people they help. This leaves Ruby feeling quite isolated from her other friends.

As an added complication, there is also a lot of rivalry and hatred between the English whites and the Afrikaans. Ruby meets a boy from an Afrikaans family who she cannot resist, but being with him brings more trouble because of all the prejudice and discrimination that affects them.

This is a beautiful story, full of emotion and is told amazingly well.