The Higher Power of Lucky

Title: The Higher Power of Lucky

Written by: Susan Patron

Summary: Lucky is a little girl who is living with a guardian named Bridgette who she is scared of losing. This story is the journey of lucky finding what she believes her “higher power”. With the help of her friends and family Lucky eventually finds what she is looking for.

The higher power of lucky was a quick and very enjoyable read. The characters in the book seemed to jump right off the page and into my life. Bridgette was an especially mesmerizing character for me. I never quite understood what she was doing with Lucky. Why she had agreed to take Lucky, and why she wanted to leave France in the first place. Adding my confusion to Lucky’s constant worry of Bridgette leaving made the book pretty suspenseful for me. I was always right there with Lucky wondering if Bridgette was going to pick up and leave. Some of my favorite parts of the book are parts that I may not have understood if I was an elementary aged student reading the book. I loved how the characters that we meet during the smokers anonymous and alcoholics anonyms almost become our friends. We want to learn more about them just the way that Lucky wants to learn more about them. I think its so fun that Patron lets us see into the world of picking up Cigarette butts and throwing away beer cans. I loved how even though it is never explicitly talked about, we can see that Lucky has a crush. The book deals with Lucky trying to find her higher power, which in the end I was a little confused about. I did not know exactly what her higher power was but after a bit of discussion I was able to figure it out. I feel that this is a great way to use the book in class: discussion. The Higher Power of Lucky has so many Literary Elements inside of it that I feel an in depth analysis would be necessary. I would like to have my students break up into groups and choose different literary elements to present to the class. This would be a great way to get the whole class involved in pieces of the book. I can definitely see myself using The Higher Power of Lucky in my elementary classroom some day.