When we see someone acting with anger, cruelty, or prejudice, it’s easy to judge what we see. It’s harder to ask why. What happened in that person’s life? What fears, hurts, or beliefs shaped the way they see others? Understanding the answer doesn’t excuse bad behavior, but it can change the way we respond to it.

That idea is at the heart of Redeeming Rhubarb. Rhubarb’s prejudice didn’t come from nowhere. Strawberry has to decide whether to accept what her father taught her or look for herself. Bart has to decide how to respond to two boys who are cruel to animals. And throughout the story, characters repeatedly face the choice between judging an enemy and trying to understand one.

Those same questions matter outside the pages of a novel—especially for parents raising children in a divided world.

Recently, I was asked some thoughtful questions about Redeeming Rhubarb: Why did I choose mice and rats? Why did I give Rhubarb a painful reason for his prejudice? What can children see that adults sometimes miss? How much grief and hardship can middle-grade readers handle? What actually changes a cruel child? And what should parents do when their child repeats something hurtful they’ve learned from someone else?

Below are my answers. I hope they spark more meaningful discussions and provide more insight into the novel’s purpose.

You could have written this book about people. Why mice and rats — and why make the bigot the white mouse and the rescuer the black rat?

I wanted to remove the human element to make it more acceptable to my audience. If I chose specific races, others not included may not relate. By using mice and rats, I could keep the story universal while avoiding that problem.

I intentionally chose rats and mice to challenge readers’ existing biases about specific animals and help them recognize how quickly we form a judgment.

Rats are often seen as dirty, disgusting disease spreaders. We think of the bubonic plague spread by rats. In fiction, they are often portrayed as causing havoc, as in Templeton in Charlotte’s Web. While mice are often the good guys in cartoons and books. Think of Repacheep or Mickey Mouse. We often think of cute white mice as a pet.

In the book, I open with those preconceived ideas. Rats break into a home to steal food. Cute mice are having fun playing games and celebrating a birthday. Then I start to break down those notions by showing the rats are hungry and apologetic, while the mouse is loud and vindictive.

In my story, the rat is the hero who rescues, is wise, and sacrifices. The mouse is the one causing harm, trying to destroy, and hating. That reversal is meant to challenge readers’ expectations.

You spent three years as an evangelical Christian living in a lesbian community, having the conversations most people avoid. What did that teach you about how prejudice comes apart?

While I lived in that community, we got to know one another as people and became friends. We camped together, ate together, and played together. I went to parties to have fun and celebrate. All that helped prejudice come apart.

I watched documentaries and movies to understand better their point of view, which also helped me see them as people.

That’s how prejudice comes apart: when we see people as people, not a label.

That experience helped shape one of the ideas behind Redeeming Rhubarb: understanding someone doesn’t require agreeing with them. It requires being willing to see the person behind the label. I later expressed that idea in a poem I called “The Other Side.”

For convictions, we fight
so confident we are right.
Anger and aggression
without pausing to question
the pretexts of our certitude.
Rigid in our attitude.

It’s time we look inside
rather than trying to hide.
The fault and failure lie within
over our own self-centered sin.
Cease blaming others and God!
Let go of the deceptive facade!

Examine and evaluate,
consider convictions to abdicate.
Seek first to comprehend
what enemies apprehend.
Replace anger and apprehension
with charity and comprehension.

Rhubarb isn’t a cartoon villain — he lost a brother to rats. How important was it that his prejudice start from a real wound?

Stephen Covey tells a story of a man whose unruly children are disrupting a quiet subway car. When Covey asks the father to control them, the man replies blankly that they just left the hospital where their mother died. Covey’s perspective instantly shifts from annoyance to deep empathy. We all have a back story, and when you know it, you can understand why a person does or says what they do.

I tell my girls that people who bully or are mean are often hurting inside. We don’t know what goes on in their home. When I was in the 3rd grade, my teacher had a bully step out of the room, and we talked about what he did and why. The teacher explained that he may be hurting and ashamed. That stuck with me.

Knowing why Rhubarb hates rats helps us relate to him and understand his actions. It doesn’t make what he does right, but it does help us comprehend and sympathize.

You lived through the 2013 Boulder flood. What did you see then that ended up in the book?

I remember a road with a raised crack shaped like an upside-down “V”. That memory is in the book. There were signs of people volunteering to help neighbors whose homes were damaged and people helping to repair trails. I, myself, volunteered to help clean our church’s flooded basement and lost my wedding ring in the process. I put that volunteer spirit in the book. Some homes were damaged and others missed, so I put Bart’s apartment near where I lived because our home was not damaged.

Strawberry is the moral engine of the book, and she’s a kid. What do children see about their parents’ prejudices that the parents don’t?

Do you ever watch young kids play? Young children may notice differences, but those differences don’t necessarily determine whom they’ll play with. They see another kid—a potential playmate. I don’t think that prejudice is instinctive. I think it is learned.

Kids can also show a remarkable openness and empathy. They’ve not built up walls to protect their feelings as adults have, so that they can feel and understand each other better.

Rhubarb drinks. Strawberry loses a leg. A character dies. How did you decide how much a middle-grade reader can carry?

Reading With Your Kids put it this way in their review:

One of the greatest strengths of Redeeming Rhubarb is that it trusts young readers with complex ideas.

The book tackles racism, stereotypes, addiction, grief, courage, family loyalty, forgiveness, sacrifice, and faith without becoming preachy. Instead, these themes naturally emerge through the lives of memorable animal characters.

Kids go through much and are more resilient than we realize. I’ve seen children’s resilience firsthand. My late aunt grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father—my grandfather—and I’ve worked with children from broken homes who were carrying burdens adults sometimes underestimate.

That doesn’t mean children should be overwhelmed with darkness. It means we shouldn’t assume they are incapable of wrestling with difficult realities.

My daughters have watched movies and read books where the main character dies. They feel for the character. The tragedy impacts them.

I decided to make the characters go through tragedy so readers will feel and be impacted. However, I didn’t make Rhubarb a mean drunk because I didn’t want to scare the kids, so I did set limits. I also wanted the characters to be relatable. Life is not rainbows and sunshine. Characters are not all good and all bad. So I put the characters in difficult situations and show both the good and bad sides of each.

Bart’s nephews arrive, shooting kittens with foam darts, and leave, feeding one with a dropper. What actually changes a cruel kid?

I have Bart speak sternly to his nephews but not yell. To children, we are towering giants. If we yell and scream, a child will be terrified. Even if we speak gently but look down upon them, they can be intimidated and fearful. Imagine being three feet tall and having someone twice your size standing over you, angry, pointing a finger, and raising his voice. That’s what we can look like to a young child. So Bart doesn’t yell because yelling won’t change them. I wrote in depth about this in another blog.

I have Bart make them work hard. Work does something to us. It gives us purpose and satisfaction. I also have Bart let the boys feel what it is like to feed the kittens and play with the dogs. They experience the warmth and joy of doing good. That teaches more than words can.

As I point out often in the book, we need to understand why someone behaves as they do. Bart inherently understood his nephews, and I bring that out by showing his thoughts.

Bart also doesn’t lecture. He asks questions and lets his nephews answer. This prompts them to consider which is better: being cruel or being kind.

I believe that’s how you change a cruel kid.

A parent hears their child repeat something ugly they picked up at school. Based on this book, what
should happen next in that house?

This should be a conversation starter, not a time for a lecture. We need to understand what happened and why. We need to ask our child why they think another child behaved as they did, to consider what may be happening in the life of the one who did or said something ugly. I give some insights into having those difficult discussions in this blog.

Conclusion

Redeeming Rhubarb was never meant to be a book that children simply finish and put back on the shelf. I wrote it to start conversations—about prejudice, forgiveness, choices, consequences, and what can happen when we’re willing to look beyond a label and understand the person on the other side. As Reading With Your Kids put it:

Some books entertain.

Some books teach.

And every once in a while, a book quietly challenges readers—children and adults alike—to examine the assumptions they carry in their own hearts.

Redeeming Rhubarb is one of those rare books.

To help families continue those conversations, I’ve created a free companion guide to Redeeming Rhubarb with chapter-by-chapter questions and activities.

Let’s keep the discussion going.