[Ruby] has some strong qualities and some weaknesses: the characters are vividly real and distinct, the relationships (especially those within the family of the stern father and the two motherless girls) are perceptively seen, the affair between Daphne and Ruby treated with dignity; on the other hand, the first physical encounter is followed by a rhapsodical paragraph that includes such florid writing as, "Love was orange. A blinding orange pulling the world out of darkness, tinging the air with gold … orange that opened the sense into exquisite, inexpressible joy. Love was gray … the gray of Daphne's eyes…. Love was red…." Such prose halts the story, as do the unconvincing sparring dialogues between Daphne and one of the teachers.

Zena Sutherland, in her review of "Ruby," in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (reprinted by permission of The University of Chicago Press; © 1976 by The University of Chicago), Vol...