Free as a Bird by Gina Mcmurchy-Barber

Free as a Bird by Gina Mcmurchy-Barber

Short-listed for the 2010 Governor General's Award for Children's Literature, the 2010 Snow Willow Award and the 2011 CLA Young Adult Book AwardBorn with Down syndrome, Ruby Jean Sharp comes from a time when being a developmentally disabled person could mean growing up behind locked doors and barred windows and being called names like "retard" and "moron." When Ruby Jean's caregiver and loving grandmother dies, her mother takes her to Woodlands School in New Westminster, British Columbia, and rarely visits.As Ruby Jean herself says: "Can't say why they called it a school - a school's a place you go for learnin an then after you get to go home. I never learnt much bout ledders and numbers, an I sure never got to go home." It's here in an institution that opened in 1878 and was originally called the Provincial Lunatic Asylum that Ruby Jean learns to survive isolation, boredom, and every kind of abuse. Just when she can hardly remember if she's ever been happy, she learns a lesson about patience and perseverance from an old crow.

The Governor General's Award for Excellence in Teaching Canadian History was given to Gina McMurchy-Barber. Reading the Bones, her debut novel, was nominated for the Langley Book of the Year Award in 2008/2009 and the Silver Birch Award in 2009. Free as a Bird, her second YA novel, was a Governor General's Award for Children's Literature (Text) finalist in 2010.