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The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

3/31/2013

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The Higher Power of Lucky is the 2007 Newbery Award winner by Los Angeles County librarian Susan Patron.  There was a big hullaballoo at award time because of Patron’s use of the word “scrotum”on the first page, but frankly, it seems like a non-issue. 


The word is used to describe the site of a rattlesnake bite on a dog trying to save his beloved (and inebriated) master, Short Sammy.  Sammy’s dog’s excruciating pain was the “rock bottom” event that convinced Short Sammy to join AA and sober up.

But Short Sammy is not the focus of the story, and neither is his dog.  Eight-year-old Lucky is our imperfect heroine in The Higher Power of Lucky. 

Lucky lives in Hard Pan, California with her guardian, Brigitte (pronounced Bri-JEET, the French way).  Lucky spends a lot of time peeking through a hole in the fence, listening in on a multitude of stories told at different “anonymous” twelve-step meetings for various addictions.  She becomes convinced that if she can just hit rock bottom she’ll be able to find her “Higher Power.”  Then she’ll understand what life is all about.

“Rock bottom” comes when Lucky determines that Brigitte is planning to abandon her and return to France.  Since Lucky’s father left when she was born, and her real mother was killed unexpectedly two years ago,
Lucky has come to expect loss.  This would be just one more.  But what to do?  
 
Lucky decides to run away.

Hard Pan has a population of only 42, yet quirky characters abound.  Even so, what I found most appealing was Lucky’s aspiration to be a scientist, and her love of the desert and the creatures living there.

This book introduces readers to the natural history of the desert without seeming to teach or preach.  Lucky just finds these great bugs crawling about, and shoos a snake out of the dryer, and survives a dust storm,
and removes a cholla cactus ball from a little boy’s foot.  She lives in a realistic desert, something I found
interesting.

Newbery Award winning books are chosen by a committee of adults, not by children.  Some have argued that recent Newbery Award winners are not necessarily what most children want to read.  
 
This may be true, but children, like adults, have varied interests and tastes ranging from Captain Underpants through Matt Christopher’s sports fiction, on to Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events, and many many more.  Some children even like Newberry Award winners!

My theory – any reading is better than no reading.  Kid’s who read for fun, whether it’s comic books or thousand-page novels, are perfecting an art that will help them in any subject that uses a text book. 

As a great woman and fine teacher (my mother) once said, “If you can read you can figure out how to do
just about anything!”

The Higher Power of Lucky, brief at only 133 pages, is recommended for ages 10 to 12.

 Happy Reading!

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Because of Winn Dixie by Kate Dicamillo

2/26/2012

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Here’s a nice classic.  Because of Winn Dixie is a Newbery Honor book by the author of The Tale of Despereaux, which was recently made into a movie.

 While Despereaux is complete fantasy about a mouse who talks and loves music, Winn Dixie is realistic fiction about a little girl and a dog who smiles with his teeth at anyone in range.

Ten-year-old India  Opal Buloni is sent to the local Winn Dixie grocery store for a box of  macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes.  She comes back with a big scruffy dog.  

Her daddy “the preacher” thinks  they don’t need a dog, but Opal points out the Winn Dixie is one of the Less Fortunate,  and they’re supposed to help the Less Fortunate.  “This dog needs me,” she says.

Sure enough the skinny, sneezing mutt with bald patches and crooked yellow teeth does need a  friend.  But so does Opal.  

Opal’s mother left when she was three, and her father is deep within himself. Opal says, “Sometimes he reminded me of a turtle hiding inside his shell, in there thinking about things and not ever sticking his head out into the real world.”

On top of that she and her father have just moved to Naomi, and people seem really slow to open up.  Winn Dixie, with his wagging tail and sense of dog humor changes all that.  Nothing like a grinning dog to break the ice with strangers.

Most everything that happens to Opal that summer happens because of Winn Dixie.  He helps her get a job at the pet shop where Otis plays guitar to entertain the animals. 
 
She gets to be friends with Miss Franny Block when the librarian mistakes Winn Dixie for a bear, and Opal has to pick the old lady up off the floor and reassure her that Winn Dixie is really a dog, and a friendly dog at that.

 Winn Dixie introduces Opal to the local witch, and shows her what a wonderful friend Gloria Dump can be.  And Opal even gets to know a couple of kids, though that’s a little more of a challenge.

Because of Winn Dixie is a humorous, heartwarming story about friendship and love, and the value of not only accepting but embracing people’s quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Recommended for ages 9-12, Winn Dixie is loved by kids and adults alike.  For that reason it can be found just about anywhere books are sold or checked out!

Happy Reading!

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Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt

10/29/2011

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Wow!  Writers talk a lot about the importance of voice.  Voice is not only how a character or narrator speaks, but everything about him that makes him unique.  What he says and how he says it.  What he would never say in a million years.  Where he goes and wouldn’t go, what he does and would rather die than be caught doing.

Doug Sweiteck, the main character telling his story in Okay For Now, is a junior high school kid with Voice!  He’s tough, but life is tough on him.  He lives in poverty with an abusive dad, a jerk for a big brother, and another brother off fighting in Vietnam.  His mom is kind and caring but beaten down by her situation.

In spite of everything that’s going against him, there’s something about Doug.  Even when he acts like a jerk you know deep down he’s really okay.  At least for now.

When Doug’s father loses his job it’s no surprise.  Doug’s dad is lazy and mean, with an undisguised hatred for most everybody.  The family moves to a small town in upstate New York where an old friend of Doug’s father has found him a job.  But the old friend is trouble.

As a new kid in town that summer before eighth grade, Doug tries to find his way.  He meets Lilly, who calls him a skinny thug, yet invites him to her father’s store where he gets a job as a delivery boy.

Doug gets to know the town librarian, who encourages him to copy drawings of birds from an original Audubon book that’s being sold off page by page to pay the city’s bills.  Doug takes great comfort and insight from these birds and from his careful drawing of them, and vows to get all the pages back where they belong.

 His grocery delivery job brings him in contact with several interesting town’s folk who vacillate between liking and trusting him, and later fearing him when stores around town are broken into and his brother is the prime suspect.

School starts and teachers come into the picture.  Some want to help him while others seem to want nothing more than to break him.  Doug forges on.

Okay For Now has tremendous depth, with the characters around Doug burdened by their own baggage and motivations.  Besides being a gripping story, Okay For Now offers insight into history (the Vietnam War and the moon landing), artistic technique (the Audubon drawings), and what it was like growing up in the 1960s.

Okay For Now is the companion book to the Newbery Honor award winner, The Wednesday Wars.  It’s classified as a Young Adult novel for approximately ages 13 and up.  The book tackles some tough topics, and tackles them well.

 Happy Reading!

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The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

9/13/2011

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The Witch of Blackbird Pond is one classic Newbery Medal winner that flawlessly stands up to the test of time.  This historical novel, which takes place in 1687, was published fifty-one years ago, yet it reads like it could have come out last week.

Sixteen-year-old Katherine (Kit) Tyler is forced to leave her home in sunny Barbados when the grandfather who cared for her most of her life dies.  With nowhere else to turn, she sets sail for America and the aunt she knows only through letters.

She creates quite a stir when she arrives unexpectedly in backwoods Connecticut wearing silks and satins.  And even more shocking, she’s able to swim! 

In Puritan America, one way to test a witch is to see whether she floats or sinks when tossed in deep water.  A floater is most certainly a witch and will be punished as such – burned at the stake, most likely. 

A sinker . . . well, she’d most likely drown, but at least she could receive a proper burial as a good Christian woman.

Kit’s willingness to speak her mind puts her at odds with the closed religious community on many occasions.  But the thing that finally condemns her is her friendship with the widow Hannah Tupper, who lives in the meadow by Blackbird pond. 

The old woman is a branded Quaker who was run out of Massachusetts years ago.  She’s allowed to live apart from the community, but some folks fear she’s a witch, and no one dares go near her. 

No one, that is, but Kit.  Kit quickly sees that Hannah is just a kind old woman, and they become fast friends.  Kit eventually discovers that Hannah has another friend in Nat, the son of the boat captain who brought her across the sea, and together they do what they can to take care of the old woman.

This book has great characters and a taste of politics in a time when loyalty to the King of England was a touchy subject.  On top of this, there are three romances, a witch hunt, and an absolutely terrific ending.  (I love a book where everything turns out just like it should.)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is suggested for grades 5-8. 

I couldn’t put it down as a child, and had the same experience last week at “ever so much more than twenty” (as Jane elusively describes her age at the end of Peter Pan.)

Happy Reading!

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    ​I only review what I like.  So if you see it here it's good!  If you don't see something you like here, I probably didn't get to it yet.
     
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