What an amazing book for children!! Lucky, the main character, is a down on her luck 10 year old living in the desert in the middle of nowhere. However, she refuses to look at the negatives of her life however and is very grateful for everything that is good, no matter how small.
Lucky's mother died when she was only eight years old and her father (someone she's never even met) brought his ex-wife from France to watch over the daughter he never wanted. His ex-wife, Bridgette, agrees because she always wanted a child and had no job prospects in Paris. Lucky looks up to her "guardian" very much but is always scared that she will leave her to go back to France.
The "town" that Lucky and Bridgette live in only has a population of 43 and is just a bunch of dusty old trailers in the middle of the desert. Everyone is so poor, that once a month, all the adults go to the nearest city to pick up their government surplus. I think this little tid bit was one of the reasons I liked this story so much. Lucky isn't your average kid, she's at the bottom of the food chain and she knows it, it's her reaction however, to the world around her that makes her special. She never thinks about how little she has, she thinks about what she can do with what she has.
Some of her friends consist of, Lincoln, a boy her age who is constantly tying knots, Miles, a 5 year old that goes house to house begging for cookies and for someone to read him "Are You My Mother," and HMS Beagle her trusty mutt that always follows her on adventures. How can you not love the story with characters like this!?
It's a short little story and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. It was well worthy of the Newbery Medal it received.
