The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

Synopsis: Lucky Trimble is a curious, independent child who is in the guardianship of her father’s first wife, Brigitte. Brigitte is French and came to California to be her temporary guardian, and Lucky is afraid she will move back to France and Lucky will have to go to an orphanage. The story follows Lucky as she strives to find her Higher Power (Lucky eavesdrops on AA meetings and other twelve-step programs at her job of cleaning up at Hard Pan’s Found Object Wind Chime Musem), even though she’s not really sure what that is, exactly. Miles, her five-year-old friend, and Lincoln, a classmate and future president (if you ask his mother), come along for some of her adventures.

Rating: Very good

Opinion: This book won the Newbery, so I expected a great book. I was a tad bit disappointed for this reason: I put the book down about half-way through to read something else, and it took me a long time to pick it back up again. I wasn’t even sure I was going to finish it. To me, that says that the book wasn’t gripping. However, it was a very well-written book, even if it wasn’t a thrilling page-turner. Lucky is so accurately drawn as a child. She hears a few things, sees Brigitte’s passport in a suitcase, and jumps to the conclusion that Brigitte is leaving her to move back to France. With her world tumbling down around her, Lucky comes up with a grand plan to keep Brigitte with her: she plans to run away, which will make Brigitte realize that she wants to keep Lucky. That thinking – that logic – is spot-on for a child. I remember thinking similar things as a child, and I wasn’t even an orphan, like Lucky is.

Now, to weigh in on the Great Scrotum Debate, oh joy! Having read the book from cover to cover, I really think that there is more controversy than there needs to be. See, on the first page of the book is the word scrotum. Not a word you hear in everyday conversation, I’ll grant you, but Lucky overhears this word and wonders what it means. It’s not even talking about a man’s scrotum – it’s a dog’s. It comes up again at the end of the book when Lucky asks Brigitte what it means, and she explains it in very straightforward terms. And that’s it. It’s not the central theme of the book, nor does it go into raunchy terms inappropriate for the book’s readership. This is essentially a book about a child who needs to be loved and to be taken care of, and it’s a shame that a single word overshadows what is good about this book.

A Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz

Synopsis: Who doesn’t love an orphan story? Anne of Green Gables, the Boxcar Children, or Secret Garden, anyone? This story has all the charm of these stories, as well as an intriguing mystery and refreshing realism. Maud is an orphan who doesn’t fit in well at the asylum, and when the Hawthorne sisters come to adopt a little girl, she is defiantly singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the top of her voice in the outhouse. Thus begins her unconventional relationship with the Hawthorne sisters. She is to be a “secret child”, about whom nobody is to know. Maud is so desperate to leave the awful orphanage that she doesn’t care that she has to stay inside and hide when visitors come. Only after she has been with them for a while does she discover their secret life that they have been hiding from her.

Rating: Very, very good. I’m not sure why this didn’t get a Newbery honor.

Opinion: I especially enjoyed the quality of writing in this book. The author obviously has a great appreciation of language:

Maud was altogether blissful. For the first time, she
was wearing the white muslin dress that was her best,
and she was drunk with the glory of so much lace.
Hyacinth had tied the bow of her sash and encouraged
her to adorn herself with her new glass beads. Maud
felt almost too fine to breathe. She sat dagger straight,
cut her food into minuscule portions, and ate with
impeccable daintiness. [p. 102]

I really enjoyed the fact that the bad characters aren’t pure evil and the good characters aren’t angels. Maud is basically a good kid at heart, but she’s also stubborn, proud, and willful. Hyacinth appears an angel to Maud, but she is self-serving and doesn’t truly care for Maud or anyone else. Muffet, the family servant, seems slow and unintelligent at first because she is mute, deaf, and makes a moaning noise when she walks (with a limp); however, she is very smart and learns sign language quickly. And while the ending is predicable, it is the resolution that the reader longs for the entire book. This is a very satisfying book to read.

Where the Lilies Bloom by Bill and Vera Cleaver

The reason I read this one is that it is the featured juvenile selection for FCPL’s On the Same Page program, and it was excellent. Set in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, it follows the Luther family in their trials. At fourteen, Mary Call is the responsible one in her family of a dying father, a simple older sister and two younger siblings. She promises her father to keep his death a secret so that her family can stay together. In order to make ends meet, the children take up “wildcrafting”, which is the gathering of plants and roots for pharmaceutical companies. They make enough money just to get by before the winter comes. Mary Call tries to stay strong for her brothers and sisters, but the longer she has to hold it together the harder it gets. The characters, even some of the side characters, aren’t flat. Even the villain of the story will surprise the reader by the end, which is one of the things I loved about the book. Mary Call seems so certain about everything, but by the end, the people around her show her that things do not have to be the way she thought they had to. If that doesn’t make any sense, go and read the book. Ha!