Way Down Deep by Ruth White

Main Character: Twelve-year-old Ruby June
Location: West Virginia
Time period: 1950s
Genre: J Fiction

This is a very simple but very powerful little story about love and family. In the summer of 1944, a toddler is found in front of the courthouse in Way Down, a small town in the hollers of West Viriginia. She is taken in by Miss Arbutus, the proprietress of the local boardinghouse. She raises the girl, called Ruby June, to be a loving and giving person who is very much a part of the community. Then, when Ruby is twelve, a new family comes to town with clues about Ruby's past.

This is the kind of story that just makes me want to move to a small town and live in a boardinghouse. Every one is so good at heart--even Cedar who cusses up a blue streak, or old Mrs. Rife who throws rocks at people from her front porch. Even the bank robber isn't a really bad person; he's just fallen upon hard times.

Way Down Deep is on the 2008-2009 Texas Bluebonnet Award list.