It features adolescent orphan twins who are "trouble" and an eccentric older couple who adopt them and take them back to live in "magical" Ruby Holler (hollow).
[2] In a retrospective citation, the librarians call it "a beautifully written story about love and trust and how the strength and goodness of human beings can overcome all the odds".
An imaginative thirteen-year-old boy named Dallas and his sassy and bold twin sister Florida have been living in the Home for a long time, often punished for breaking rules that the Trepids post all over the house.
Outside of Boxton, on a plot of land called Ruby Holler, Tiller and Sairy Morey, a very old couple whose children have grown up and moved away, are discussing their plans for a new adventure.
Although Sairy, a very kind and trusting old lady, is excited about having children at Ruby Holler again, Tiller - a "crotchety old boot" - is doubtful.
The twins enjoy the freedom and adventure they find in the holler, but they're still suspicious and think that Tiller and Sairy will mistreat them the way others have - although their suspicions soon prove false.
Mr. Trepid promises to pay a shady man called Z, who is a neighbor of Tiller and Sairy, to map out Ruby Holler.
Z continues to stall with production of Mr. Trepid's map, feeling more protective of the kids since he believes that Dallas and Florida may really be his biological children: he sees their birth certificate and it looks as if their mother was Z's runaway wife.
In the morning, Dallas and Florida smell their breakfast cooking as usual and return home to the cabin in Ruby Holler.
He is thirteen years old and was abandoned by his mother as an infant and lived at the Boxton Creek Home for his whole life, except when he was adopted and sent back by families that saw him and his sister as trouble.
When Florida first enters Ruby Holler, she is very suspicious of Tiller and Sairy, thinking they will be like other families before.
She does not know how to swim, which is unfortunate when she falls out of the boat on a rafting trip, although she knows basic CPR, which she uses to revive Tiller after his heart attack.
In a contemporary review for The Guardian, Philip Pullman remarked on Ruby Holler's "larger-than-life, brighter-than-natural quality" and concluded that while neither great literature nor the author's best work, "it's a book that shows how very satisfying unobtrusive craftsmanship can be, even working with slight materials, and it's fun, and it celebrates kindness and decency."
Regarding the main plot line, he observed that "it's not hard to predict that there will be problems to overcome and dangers to face, but that they'll all live happily ever after."
Concluding online coverage for The Guardian, Dina Rabinovitch called Ruby Holler "an old-fashioned tale of two children in peril rescued by the wisdom of two old folk.
What sets it apart is Creech's typical lightness of touch; the glancing way she writes means you barely realise that, even in this solid love story of older folk, the wife is less sure of marriage than the man.