Little Ruth
Halloween Drama Queen
Little Ruth: Halloween Drama Queen is a sweet picture book that celebrates a plucky girl’s resourcefulness.
In Dee Write’s picture book Little Ruth: Halloween Drama Queen, a girl working to upgrade her Halloween costume faces unexpected challenges.
Ruth is eager to be a princess for Halloween. Though she finds the perfect dress in a local shop, her dreams are dashed: The dress’s cost exceeds her costume allowance. With her grandmother’s help, she instead repurposes an old dress into a dazzling creation. Through imagination and hard work, she learns valuable lessons about resourcefulness and problem-solving, culminating in a Halloween she’ll never forget.
Healthy parent-child relationships are the story’s bedrock. Ruth’s parents promote financial literacy, establishing a costume allowance for each child to teach them about budgeting and accountability. Their enforcement of boundaries is tempered by empathy, though, as they explain why Ruth can’t afford the dress. This approach extends to Ruth’s relationship with her grandmother, who helps turn the initial setback into a moment of empowerment.
The illustrations are less dynamic, though. In them, people maintain the same expressions throughout the story, so that Ruth’s disappointment is not differentiated enough; a single tear is used to indicate her sadness. And the domestic backgrounds are plain, colored in muted gray tones that contrast with the brighter colors elsewhere, including saturated reds and oranges. Further, the illustrations are lacking texture, as where grass is depicted with a flat green. The characters’ brown hues allot additional vibrancy, though, along with their Afro-textured hairstyles and curl patterns.
Educational materials follow the story. The back matter explains the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol featured in the story. Ruth’s mother wears a necklace with an Ananse Ntontan symbol, representing a spider and “its wit to solve problems where size and strength are not enough.” This moment helps to connect the story to the broader cultural values of Ruth’s family—a subtle but delayed touch that enriches the book’s themes of conflict resolution after the fact.
A sweet seasonal picture book about resourcefulness, Little Ruth: Halloween Drama Queen includes an inventive heroine who turns a Halloween hiccup into an opportunity for ingenuity.
Reviewed by
Brooke Shannon
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
