The One and Only Ruby: A Meaningful Novel Study for Your Classroom

by Shelley | English/Language Arts, Novel Studies

f you’re looking for a high-interest novel that will engage upper elementary readers while providing meaningful opportunities for reading comprehension, discussion, writing, and critical thinking, add The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate to your classroom reading list.

As the final book in the beloved One and Only trilogy, The One and Only Ruby allows students to reconnect with familiar characters while learning more about Ruby, the young elephant whose story began in The One and Only Ivan.

Ruby’s journey is filled with friendship, courage, family, belonging, and resilience. It also gives teachers plenty of opportunities to spark thoughtful conversations and connect literature to real-world topics such as animal welfare, conservation, empathy, and human responsibility.

The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate

You Can Find this Novel Here

We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Why Teach The One and Only Ruby?

Katherine Applegate has created a story that is both accessible to young readers and rich enough to support deeper literary analysis. Students can enjoy Ruby’s story while exploring important themes and practicing essential ELA skills.

Here are just a few reasons The One and Only Ruby makes an excellent classroom novel.

1. It Builds Empathy and Compassion

One of the greatest strengths of The One and Only Ruby is its ability to help students see the world from another perspective.

Ruby’s experiences encourage readers to think about what it means to be separated from home, experience change, form relationships, and find a place where you belong.

These experiences create natural opportunities to discuss empathy, compassion, kindness, and caring for others.

Try asking your students:

• How do Ruby’s experiences shape the way she sees the world?
• How do other characters demonstrate compassion?
• What does it mean to understand someone else’s feelings?
• How can we show empathy in our own classroom?

These conversations can extend beyond the novel and help students make meaningful connections to their own lives.

2. The Themes Encourage Meaningful Discussion

The One and Only Ruby is much more than an entertaining animal story. It provides opportunities to explore several universal themes that students can connect to.

Some important themes include:

• Friendship
• Belonging
• Courage
• Facing your fears
• Family
• Growing up
• Change
• Empathy
• Resilience
• Finding your place

These themes make the novel especially effective for whole-class novel studies, literature circles, reading groups, and independent reading.

Students can support their ideas with evidence from the text while learning that a story can have multiple meaningful interpretations.

3. It Encourages Critical Thinking

A great novel study should do more than ask students to remember what happened in each chapter.

The One and Only Ruby provides opportunities for students to infer, analyze, predict, explain, compare, and support their thinking with text evidence.

Instead of simply asking, “What happened?” encourage students to ask:

Why did this happen?

How did this event affect the character?

What does this reveal about the character?

What evidence from the text supports your thinking?

How might the story have been different if a character had made a different choice?

These types of questions turn reading into an active process and help students develop stronger comprehension and critical-thinking skills.

4. It Opens the Door to Environmental and Animal Conservation Topics

Because Ruby is an elephant, the novel also provides a natural bridge between fiction and nonfiction learning.

Students can investigate topics such as:

• Elephant habitats
• African elephants
• Animal conservation
• Wildlife sanctuaries
• Animal behavior
• Human impact on wildlife
• Captivity versus life in the wild
• Protecting endangered animals

This creates an excellent opportunity for cross-curricular learning.

After reading about Ruby’s experiences, students can research a related topic and use information from nonfiction sources to expand their understanding.

You can even have students compare what they learn from informational texts with Ruby’s fictional experiences.

5. It Supports Strong ELA Instruction

One of the biggest advantages of using a high-interest novel in the classroom is that you can teach a wide variety of ELA skills within an authentic reading experience.

 The One and Only Ruby novel study can support instruction in:

• Reading comprehension
• Making inferences
• Summarizing
• Character analysis
• Theme
• Story elements
• Vocabulary
• Grammar
• Text evidence
• Reading response
• Opinion writing
• Essay writing
• Critical thinking
• Nonfiction reading
• Literary analysis

Instead of teaching these skills in isolation, students practice them while reading a story they actually care about.

The One and Only Ruby Novel Study Ideas

If you’re planning to teach The One and Only Ruby, consider incorporating a combination of comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and discussion activities.

Character Analysis

Have students track Ruby’s development throughout the story.

Students can identify:

• Ruby’s character traits
• Challenges she faces
• Important decisions she makes
• How she changes
• Relationships that influence her
• Evidence that supports their thinking

A character development chart can be especially useful for helping students see how a character changes over the course of a novel.

Vocabulary Activities

Create a vocabulary list from the novel and have students use context clues to determine word meanings.

Students can then:

• Define words in their own words
• Identify synonyms and antonyms
• Use words in original sentences
• Illustrate vocabulary
• Find examples of words used in context

Reading Comprehension Questions

Instead of relying only on basic recall questions, include a mixture of literal, inferential, and analytical questions.

For example:

Literal: What happened?

Inferential: Why do you think the character made that choice?

Analytical: How does this event contribute to one of the novel’s themes?

This progression helps students move from understanding the text to thinking deeply about it.

Opinion and Essay Writing

The novel also provides excellent opportunities for text-based writing.

Students can respond to questions related to animals, conservation, friendship, belonging, or decisions made by characters.

Require students to support their opinions with specific evidence from the novel.

This is a great way to combine reading comprehension and writing instruction.

Teaching The One and Only Ruby With a Complete Novel Study

If you don’t want to spend hours creating The One and Only Ruby worksheets, comprehension questions, vocabulary activities, assessments, and writing assignments, a ready-to-use novel study can save you valuable planning time.

I created a complete The One and Only Ruby Novel Study designed for grades 4–6.

What’s Included in the The One and Only Ruby Novel Study?

• Chapter-by-chapter comprehension questions
• Vocabulary activities
• Grammar activities
• Reading responses
• Writing activities
• Nonfiction reading
• Opinion writing
• Character and story element activities
• Assessments
• Answer keys
• Teacher lesson plans
• Common Core standards alignment
• Printable PDF resources
• Digital Google Slides activities
• Digital Google Forms assessments

It’s designed to give you the structure of a complete novel unit without requiring you to create everything from scratch.

Try a Free Sample

Want to see what the novel study looks like before purchasing?

Download the free sample and preview the activities included in the complete unit.

Bring The One and Only Ruby Into Your Classroom

The best classroom novels are the ones that make students want to keep reading while giving teachers opportunities to teach important skills.

The One and Only Ruby does both.

Ruby’s story can lead your students into conversations about empathy, friendship, courage, belonging, conservation, and what it means to find your place in the world.

Pair the novel with thoughtful comprehension questions, vocabulary activities, writing assignments, nonfiction connections, and discussion, and you have the foundation for a rich and engaging upper elementary novel study.

If you’re ready to make teaching The One and Only Ruby easier, check out the complete The One and Only Ruby Novel Study for grades 4–6.

Less prep. More meaningful reading. More opportunities for your students to think, discuss, write, and connect.

Is The One and Only Ruby a Good Book for a Novel Study?

Absolutely!

If your students enjoyed The One and Only Ivan and The One and Only Bob, The One and Only Ruby is a natural addition to your classroom library and novel study plans.

Even students who haven’t read the earlier books can find plenty to appreciate in Ruby’s story. The novel’s themes of friendship, courage, belonging, empathy, and resilience give students opportunities to connect personally with the characters while developing important reading and writing skills.

And because the story connects naturally to animal conservation and nonfiction research, it can become the starting point for much more than a traditional book unit.

 Connect with Fellow Educators!

Are you teaching The One and Only Ruby this school year?

Join our free community, Book Talk with The Teaching Bank, to share ideas, grab freebies, and connect with 3rd–8th grade teachers using novels in the classroom!

*The Teaching Bank participates in the Amazon Associate Program and earns a fee from qualifying purchases made on the Amazon.com site.