This Old Man

A spunky young girl forms an unlikely friendship with a dying Chinese man while living in a group home

For Greta, having light and carefree Hackey hanging around her mom is a lot more fun than having an ordinary dad. But Hackey isn’t her father—he’s more like a pimp, and no matter how friendly he is, he still treats Greta’s mom like dirt. When the situation at home goes from bad to worse, Greta is moved into a home for at-risk children where she meets some of the most interesting girls she has ever known—and a shy young boy named Wing.
 
Greta’s riding a San Francisco cable car when she notices Wing carrying a huge basket of delicious-smelling food. It’s for his grandfather, Old Man, who is dying in the Chinese hospital. Although they don’t speak the same language, Greta and Old Man will become fast friends—two survivors, who refuse to give up on life.
 

Lois Ruby is the author of 18 books for middle graders and teens, including Steal Away Home, Miriam’s Well, The Secret of Laurel Oaks, Rebel Spirits, Skin Deep, and The Doll Graveyard. Her fiction runs the gamut from contemporary to historical and from realistic to paranormal. An ex-librarian, Ruby now writes full-time, in addition to speaking to bookish groups, presenting at writing workshops, and touting literacy and the joys of nourishing, thought-provoking reading in schools across the country. Ruby and her husband live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.