Higher Power of Lucky

Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

Ages 9-11

Five stars

            Jacob and I were on our way to Des Moines for the weekend, which is a two-hour drive.  I brought along Higher Power of Lucky to read, but I felt bad leaving Jacob to a boring drive, so I asked him if I could read aloud to him in hopes practicing reading a chapter book aloud (which I’ve never done before).  Surprisingly he agreed.  We got about a third of the way through the book, and I never finished reading it for him.   When I did finish it he asked me what happened, and I felt that I had to tell him almost everything that happened to Lucky otherwise he wouldn’t get the full experience like he did in the beginning. 

            I really enjoyed our discussion on the symbols and metaphors of the book.  Discussing a book is probably one of my favorite things to do after reading it.  One thing that I noted while reading this book is the writing style of Susan Patron.  We entered into Lucky’s point of view from the first sentence of the book, “Lucky Trimble crouched in a wedge of shade behind the Dumpster.”  Why is dumpster capitalized? Since I was reading it aloud, I questioned it even more.  I didn’t know what it meant and why it was capitalized.  You later find out that this is a common area/place to Lucky and would be considered a proper noun.  I think this would be a very interesting conversation to have with children.

            The few pictures speak a thousand words in this book.  I didn’t realize till I was completely finished with the book what the cover really resembled.  I knew it was Lucky but I didn’t know that she had her mother’s urn in her other hand and that she was wearing Bridgette’s red dress.