Laura Ruby Biography

children: two step daughters.

Addresses

office—c/o Author Mail, HarperCollins Children's, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

Career

Author.

Honors Awards

Parent's Choice Silver Honor for Fiction, 2003, and Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for best juvenile mystery, 2004, both for Lily's Ghosts.

Writings

Lily's Ghosts, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

Sidelights

Laura Ruby is the author of Lily's Ghosts, a novel that focuses on a thirteen-year-old girl who is being haunted by ghosts. Lily Crabtree and her mother have recently moved to an old Victorian house that belongs to a very distant family relative. Upon entering the house Lily discovers a creepy portrait of her great uncle, which she decides to put in a closet. From that point on, strange occurrences plague Lily, such as finding jam in her shoes and seeing objects moving about mysteriously. When Lily decides that she is being haunted by ghosts, she calls on a friend to help her discover what is actually going on in her house. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly commended Ruby for her "Sharp-witted narrative and lively characterizations," while Renee Steinberg, reviewing Lily's Ghosts for School Library Journal, called the book "a good pick."

When asked if she herself believed in ghosts like her teen protagonist, Ruby told a Kidsreads.com interviewer: "This might sound odd, but I WANT to believe in them. I think the world would be a much more interesting place if all sorts of ghosts were rattling around. But I've never seen one myself."