Moira LOVES this one. She can say Ruby now, clear as day and acts very pathetic if you don't read it to her right away. She has also started shouting "Ruby!" when she sees a ball, because Ruby has a ball. The plot is that Ruby has a scary seeming neighbor who turns out to be an amazing gardener who teaches Ruby all her tricks. I don't really like the illustrations. There are layers with each layer in the background getting progressively blurrier. Then at the end, the first layer of bac More...

Reviewed by Me for Kids @ TeensReadToo.com

My children and I absolutely loved this book. From the story itself to the funny and whimsical illustrations, you won't go wrong adding a copy of WHEN RUBY TRIED TO GROW CANDY to your library.

Ruby Louise Hawthorn is sure that a mean old lady must live on the other side of the fence. But when her ball bounces over that dividing line, Ruby has no choice but to leave a note (in case she perishes) and use a ladder to climb into the n More...

Ruby Louise Hawthorn is a little leary of her mysterious neighbor, Miss Wysterious. But when she accidentally goes over to the other side of her neighbor's fence, she finds that Miss Wysterious grows very unusual things in garden such as teacups, playing cards, and umbrellas. Miss Wysterious asks Ruby what she wants to plant...and of course, like every kid she wants candy. And what a delicious garden it is.

Used for "We Love Desserts!" storytime-May, 2010.

The illustrations in the book almost give it a dreamlike quality. This gives hope to young children that if you stick with something, you will experience the rewards. This book could be used when talking about sweets, life-cycles (in showing how she watered, and waited for her plants to grow) and how appearances can be misleading.

OMG. I was dozing and was drowsing and I was thinking, "hmm... all these picture books are fine but nothing is extraordinary or that much fun." But then, I picked this one up, opened it, and was astounded by its originality, its playfulness, its artistic line drawings matched against highly stylized photographs -- the background of real objects are blurred, giving the story a dream-like (very Alice in Wonderland-esque) quality and making the clear, clean, colored line drawings in th More...

RUUUUUUUUUUUUBY!