Ruby's Sword
Author: Jacqueline Véissid
Illustrator: Paola Zakimi
Publisher: Chronicle
Ruby finds a stick that can be used in her imaginative games. The stick becomes a sword that fulfils many functions from fighting dragons to providing a prop for holding up a ‘magnificent castle’ that Ruby constructs with her brothers to whom she has ‘granted’ swords. The alliterative and onomatopoeic text is complemented by pictures which demonstrate Ruby’s activities, including her use of the stick/sword for mark-making in the soil – ‘The dirt needed decoration.’