Children's Books: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

I'm going to try something new here: I have two kids and I read to them almost every night so let's talk about kid's books shall we? I saw this book at our library on a Newberry Medal winners poster so I picked it up to read to my 10 year old.

This is the story of Lucky, age 10. She lives in the Mojave Desert in a small town of just 43 persons called Hard Pan. When she was 8 her mother died and she never knew her father. Upon hearing of the mother's death, Lucky's father asks his ex-wife Brigitte to come over from France to care for Lucky until foster care can be arranged. However it is now two years later and Brigitte is still stuck in Hard Pan acting as Lucky's guardian.  

Lucky has a job in town cleaning up the mess left behind from various twelve-step anonymous group members. She eaves drops on some of the meetings and hears a lot of people mentioning hitting rock bottom and finding their higher power in order to pick themselves back up again. She gets obsessed with trying to figure out exactly what a higher power is and how she can find her own. After various events Lucky becomes certain that Brigitte wants to return to France and that she will end up in an orphanage, being separated from her dog, HMS Beagle, and the only friends she has ever known in the process. This drives Lucky to take drastic measures like running away. She has a well thought out plan that includes her bulging survival kit backpack, but she doesn't plan on the dust storm that occurs while she is navigating the harsh desert landscape.

My daughter and I both loved this book. Lucky is a tough and curious child, she fancies herself as a scientist rather than a princess and I found that to be very refreshing. There were some tough moments in the story, like when Lucky talks about scattering her mother's ashes. That was particularly hard since we had done just that with my mother's ashes this past Mother's Day. I tried to hold it together but failed miserably which lead to my daughter wrapping her arms around me while crying quietly herself (she is a wonderful child). In the end though my daughter wanted to hear more of Lucky and Hard Pan but I told her that was it just one book, however I have discovered there are two more books turning this into "The Hard Pan Trilogy". I haven't told her yet but I have already picked up book #2 Lucky Breaks from the library. 

Quote:
“Because sometimes Lucky wanted to change everything, all the bad things that had happened, and sometimes she wanted everything to stay the same forever.”