ruby in the sky by jeanne zulick ferruolo

They said yes to Madeline L’Engle and then they took a chance on me. “My favorite children’s book is ‘A Wrinkle in Time.’ Madeline L’Engle shopped it out to 26 publishers and finally Farrar, Strauss and Giroux said yes. Then a publisher offered me a two-book deal, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.” Getting someone to want the book wasn’t easy: “I worked a long time to get it published. She has since made writing her full-time work. She retired from the law in 2017.Īt the time she was diagnosed with the sarcoma, she was editing “Ruby,” which she wrote in her spare time while she was still practicing law. However, two bouts with cancer - breast cancer, which is gone, and a sarcoma, which is still present but not growing - left her too exhausted to keep up with her accreditation. A lot of times people wind up in situations because of illness, losing a job, a million things,” she said. People make judgments about people they’ve met briefly based on the clothes they wear or other reasons.

“What I learned from that is that there are two sides to every story. Sam Gejdenson.Īfter law school, she became a public defender, a job she loved. Before law school, she was an assistant for former U.S. Smith High in Mansfield, the University of Connecticut and Western New England College of Law. If I didn’t speak up, no one would hear their side. And when I did that, I discovered I could be brave because it wasn’t about me anymore. Most prominently, one of the heroes of the book is Dahlia’s lawyer, Annie. Abigail feeds chickadees by hand, like Zulick Ferruolo’s father taught her when she was a child. Ruby owns a golden retriever, Bob, just like Zulick Ferruolo’s Meadow. Many elements of the story come from Zulick Ferruolo’s own life.

Children’s books have a simple beauty to them,” Zulick Ferruolo says during an interview at her Ellington home, where she lives with her husband Paul, her teens Andrew and Sophia and her dog Meadow. I was a voracious reader as a kid and I read to my kids and loved it. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award, and a New Voices in Children’s Literature’s Tassy Walden Award. The Washington Post has named it one of its eight KidsPost Summer Book Club Reads, it has won a Work-In-Progress award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a PEN New England Susan P. “Ruby in the Sky” (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 304 pp., $16.99) was released in February. Ferruolo’s first published novel has been a big success with critics. She has embarked on another one: children’s book author. Illness compelled her to set aside that career. Until two years ago, Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo made her living as a contract public defender, taking on cases in Rockville and other superior courts for defendants without resources.

Ruby in the sky by jeanne zulick ferruolo