When we did come across May’s, we’d do the exact same thing. We’d stop and exchange a look. Ye-Ye would raise an eyebrow. “Egg tarts or coconut bread?”
And every time, I said, “Both?”
And every time, I said, “Both?”
“I’m going to help save the bakery.” “What?” “The bakery,” I said, my voice steadying. “It can’t go. I’m going to figure out a way to help May Wong save it.” There. I said it. Now there was no going back.
It might be good to grab a map of San Francisco or look for some photographs of the city - especially if, like me, you don't live in the US or you are unfamiliar with this city.
I did read this book quite quickly. There were many plot points that felt familiar or similar to other books so while I did enjoy some parts of this story it didn't completely grab me. I have put some similar books at the end of this post.
Plot points:
- A young girl (Ruby Chu) is sent to spend the summer with her grandmother - Nai-Nai. This is partly a punishment because Ruby has been caught leaving her school at lunch time
- Ruby is carrying the burdens of grief and guilt. She is sure it is her fault that her grandfather Ye-Ye died about a year ago.
- Ruby was once best friends with her sister Viv but now that her sister is older and about to head away to college their connection seems to be gone.
- Adding to this Ruby's best friend Mia has moved across the country and Naomi, her other friend, seems to have moved on to a different group. Ruby feels isolated and alone.
- Mum and Dad are absent from Monday to Friday because they are frantically busy with their work commitments and Ruby cannot talk to them over dinner at the weekend because they are always rushing to answer important phone calls.
- Ruby spends her weekdays with Nai-Nai and each day they go to the Seniors Centre. Ruby does make a friend but at first, she is sure she does not like Liam at all. Over time she finds out he has had some deep sadness in his life and with teamwork they bond over their shared goal of saving the bakery.
- Ruby knows she is 'grounded' but she breaks this rule by going a sleepover with Naomi. If she talks to her parents about her grandmother, they will discover this and the sleepover is a disaster.
- Her grandmother is showing early signs of memory loss and later Ruby learns the words dementia and Alzheimer's.
- Mum and Dad decide Nai-Nai needs to go to an aged care facility and when Nai-Nai runs away but Ruby is able to 'rescue' her and things in her family are finally out in the open and able to be resolved.
- So by now you probably agree with me that the title is perfect - Ruby is lost and then she is found or she discovers things about herself and begins to accept the changes in her life.
Publisher blurb: Thanks to her Ye-Ye’s epic scavenger hunts, thirteen-year-old Ruby Chu knows San Francisco like the back of her hand. But after his death, she feels lost, and it seems like everyone—from her best friends to her older sister—is abandoning her. After Ruby gets in major trouble at school, her parents decide she has to spend the summer at a local senior center with her grandmother, Nai-Nai, and Nai-Nai’s friends for company. When a new boy from Ruby’s grade, Liam Yeung, starts showing up too, Ruby’s humiliation is complete. But Nai-Nai, her friends, and Liam all surprise Ruby. She finds herself working with Liam, who might not be as annoying as he seems, to help save a historic Chinatown bakery that’s being priced out of the neighborhood. And alongside Nai-Nai, who is keeping a secret that threatens to change everything, Ruby retraces Ye-Ye’s scavenger hunt maps in an attempt to find a way out of her grief—and maybe even find herself.
Read this detailed review from Ms Yingling and one from Horn Book Magazine.
I did enjoy the descriptions of Chinatown and also the relationships between the older ladies at the senior centre where Ruby goes each day with her grandmother. This book also explores the complexities of junior high friendships and peer group relationships. Here are some text quotes to give you a flavour of this story by Christina Li.
I took a bite and savored the sweet, creamy egg custard, pressing down the inkling of worry in my chest. The crust was soft and flaky and melted on my tongue. “Thank you,” I said, muffled, my mouth half-full. It was just like how I remembered it in May’s Bakery on a busy Saturday morning or on a quiet Sunday afternoon, leaning over the counter to peer at the egg tarts and sponge cakes through the glass. I took a sip of the tea and leaned back and felt warm and full.
They passed out bingo cards and chips. And right before it started, Auntie Lin leaned back to speak to May Wong. She kept her voice low, but I was just close enough to hear her say, in Mandarin, “Another kid to babysit? What are we, a day care?" ... Also: another kid? Some other grandchild was being brought here against their will? Five hours to go. The clock was literally slowing before my eyes.
Nai-Nai also didn’t do much after the days at the senior center. She used to always go on small trips and errands. Back when she was really into making clothes, she’d take me with her to the fabric store. We’d hang out for hours while she draped lengths of fabric over herself, so it looked like she had a rainbow cape. Or during her paint phase, she’d grab watercolors and have Ye-Ye and me paint with her. But now, like clockwork, we headed straight back to the apartment in the late afternoon. She wore gray sweater-vests and different varieties of handmade baggy pants. And her only hobby these days seemed to be watching TV.
Ye-Ye made me a scavenger hunt every August, the weekend before school started. There were colored-pencil marks over all of this map, a different color for every year. Dark green was last year. Gold was the year before, then red. The last time that Viv joined us for the scavenger hunts was recorded in a beautiful sky blue, looping near the ocean. Viv always liked to charge ahead with each clue, as if it was a race to finish as fast as possible. I liked to wander. And then the next year she stopped coming.
The other day, she left the package of tofu out on the counter after cooking noodles. When Nai-Nai came for breakfast, she stared at the tofu package and asked me why I’d taken it out for breakfast. Nai-Nai was always a bit scatterbrained. She often left mail and receipts out on the coffee table and left books she was reading open and facedown. But she never really misplaced things in the kitchen.
You might want to grab a copy of this book after reading Ruby lost and found:
And you want to eat a custard tart or some coconut bread and visit a Japanese stationery store to buy some of those fun animal erasers (chapter 7).
Companion books:
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