A story about composting and overcoming bullying in favor of the bigger picture.

Ruby the Red Worm’s Dirty Job
By Scott Stoll
Illustrated by the Waukesha STEM
Children’s chapter book
Ages 5–12+
As featured in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Synopsis: Ruby the Red Worm is a humorous and educational introduction to composting and the essential role worms serve in the ecosystem. More importantly, it is a story about living a life of passion despite life’s bullies — even if it means eating dirt.
Note: This is an inspirational and educational introduction to composting with some life lessons. It is not a book about how to raise worms though we hope it inspires you to do so. The reading level is between a children’s picture book and a children’s chapter book; however, we design our books to be interesting for all ages. We want the parents to enjoy reading it just as much as the children enjoy listening.
More ways to order
- Order at your favorite local bookstore. I recommend Bookshop.org. They donate 100% of the profits back to your favorite local bookstore.
- Order at your local library. Try Hoopla to get the e-book from your library. It’s free.
- Order on Amazon. This is a great option if you would like to leave a review and help the book find an audience.
- More e-book options.
- Add to your Goodreads list.
- Even more ways to order.
Part of the Make-A-Book Project
This book was part of the Make-A-Book Project. The books are meant to be inspirational, educational and entertaining. The stories are written by Scott and illustrated by elementary students and jam-packed with fun surprises and suggested activities. The black and white pages leave plenty of room so children can add their own drawings and colors.
Update: Over a thousand people came to the ice cream social celebration and had their books signed by the student illustrators.
- Read about the Make-A-Book Project.
- Read about the step-by-step creation of this book.


More about this book: This children’s chapter book is full of rich, conceptual drawings that complement a story that grew and grew as the students continued to inspire me to write new pages to match their wonderful drawings. It is a particularly important book, as it is the first book not about me, but something much more important — worms! I’m glad to see that being green is a topic that finally has finally reached critical mass in the mainstream consciousness. And Ruby the Red Worm illustrates many subjects from composting and recycling to a passion for living a harmonious life. The book also includes a page of challenges to help kids find hidden surprises in the story. During the first draft of the story, Ruby the Red Worm was known as Redford.
“The mission of the STEM Academy is to engage, inspire, and empower a community of learners in thinking, collaborating, innovating, and creating for the future.” Therefore this project gave the students the opportunity to apply these principles to their learning and everyday life—literally creating a dream and turning it into a reality. This project also sowed a lot of collateral creations, such as a name-that-bug contest, worm farms, musical theme songs for the characters in the book, the class photo pictured above, illustrator book signing, media exposure, and much more.
Inspirational, Educational and Entertaining
Every book in the Make-A-Book project has three main themes. First, they are meant to inspire students. Second, they educate students, so students can put their inspiration into action. And third, they are entertaining, which serves as a hook to get the students involved. You can see these themes in the pages below.





View all the Project Updates.
More ways to order
- Order at your favorite local bookstore. I recommend Bookshop.org. They donate 100% of the profits back to your favorite local bookstore.
- Order at your local library. Try Hoopla to get the e-book from your library. It’s free.
- Order on Amazon. This is a great option if you would like to leave a review and help the book find an audience.
- More e-book options.
- Add to your Goodreads list.
- Even more ways to order.
Author: Scott Stoll
Publisher: TheArgonauts
Format: Paperback and e-book. 102 Pages.
Age group: 5–12+
Publication: Anniversary edition © 05-10-2011
ISBN-13: 978-0982784228
Language: English
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the 490 students and their parents. Thanks to the staff of the Waukesha STEM Academy; in particular, principal Ryan Krohn for his vision, student resource teacher Kate Krzysik for her magical ability to make things happen, and the art teacher Melissa Nagan for her neverending inspirational smile.