The higher power of lucky By: Susan Patron

The higher power of lucky   By: Susan Patron

Illustrations by: Matt Phetan

Atheneum Books for Young Readers; New York

Copy Right: 2006

            This book is about a ten year old girl named Lucky who struggles with the lose of her mother.  She lives in an extremely small town with her dad and is eventually joined by her father ex-wife a new caregiver. Lucky is so hyper vigilant that her new mother will leave her and is convinced that is exactly what is happening when she stumbles on a suitcase and legal looking papers.  Lucky is devastated and decided she has no choice but to run away with her dog in tow.  She doesn’t get far when she finds her friend Miles injured and stops to help him.  She couldn’t have chosen a worse time to run away because now they were in the middle of a desert sandstorm.  The story does have a happy ending for Lucky. She discovers that her fears were unwarranted, that the papers she found were actually adoption papers.  You could feel Lucky’s emotions throughout this book and you really rallied that her life turns out okay.

            What I liked about this book was that it showed that not everyone’s life is a fairy tale, but you can still have happy endings.  I felt a text to self connection with this book with Lucky’s fear of loss, since I came from a divorced family.  I think this will really resonate with some children who face similar issues.  My text to text connection came with the book Because of Winn-Dixie.  Both characters had lost their mother and it influence who they were and what they were searching for.