An Unbiased Review
Here’s a guest post from Margie Golick PhD, clinical child psychologist, educational adviser to many children’s entertainment and educational properties including Sesame Park, Busy World of Richard Scary, Caillou and Mia Mouse. Dr Golick is the author of several books including Deal Me In, Wacky Word Games and Reading, Writing and Rummy.
In the interests of full disclosure Jill Golick, executive producer, is my daughter (and Marlee Maslove who plays Hailey is my granddaughter). As a psychologist I have worked as a consultant on many children’s media projects on which Jill was a writer and always managed to put sentiment aside. The fact of the matter is we both believe that children of all ages need to hear, read, and watch interesting stories. It keeps them cheerful and attentive, ignites their imagination, develops their vocabulary. I know — and the Ruby Skye team obviously know — that stories (and their characters) don’t have to be violent, slapstick, or kitschy to be interesting.
Ruby Skye P.I. What fun! I laughed out loud (just reading the scripts) and turned the pages as fast as I could to find out what happened to whom and why.
Ruby is a would-be detective out to solve the mysteries around her. And because she is curious, observant, and has a great imagination she finds lots of mysteries. There are heroes, villains (not too villainous) and red herrings. Every kind of relationship comes into play: siblings, friends, teacher/pupil, father/son, boy-girl, and story, story, story. New developments in every scene keep us guessing. The main characters are Ruby, age 15, her little sister Hailey age 13, Ruby’s sometime sidekick, Griffin, and the snooty, malicious Diana (who seems to have her eye on Griffin). The dialogue is fast and funny. And the adventures take place in an urban neighborhood.
There is a crime, there are suspects galore, , there are modern day tools: computers, cell phones and a smart little sister who knows how to hack. But there is still the need for careful observation and good old-fashioned logic. Ruby Skye P.I. lets us in on the essentials of nailing a perpetrator: there has to be motivation, opportunity, means and some evidence.Ruby and Haley are great role models for their tween age viewers. They are strong, opinionated girls, and though they do their share of bickering they seem to care genuinely about their neighbours, the environment and when it comes right down to the crunch, about each other.
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