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nssutton's review against another edition
2.0
was on the newberry shelf near jacob have i loved. just wasn't my sort of tea.
librariandest's review against another edition
4.0
In case you don't know, this is the book that won the Newbery medal and caused all the fuss over the word scrotum. Scrota (I had to look up the right plural) aside, it's a neat little book about a young girl looking for answers to life's tough questions, which is all the more interesting in her case because she has a nontraditional family and an obsession with 12 Step groups. (And Lucky is a really cute name for a kid, though it's kind of always been a dog's name in my book.)
jennchandler's review against another edition
4.0
This was perfectly delightful, lovely, charming, and well-written.
lwhite0889's review against another edition
3.0
Newbery Medal winner - 2007
This is a short, sweet, and atmospheric realistic fiction novel centered around a girl named Lucky. Lucky lives in a tiny town (population 43) in the Mojave desert with her guardian. The book is set two years after the death of Lucky's mother, and is a sort of coming of age story, chronicling her journey to understand the relationship between herself and her guardian, and herself and her grief for her mother.
The story and prose are simple, and the story moves at a sedate but steady pace. Nothing about the book, however, struck me as particularly remarkable. The book doesn't seem to portray the main character's major struggles (grief, emotional abandonment, poverty) in a way that would resonate with children dealing with the same issues, and it certainly didn't treat those issues in a way that particularly resonated with me.
This is a short, sweet, and atmospheric realistic fiction novel centered around a girl named Lucky. Lucky lives in a tiny town (population 43) in the Mojave desert with her guardian. The book is set two years after the death of Lucky's mother, and is a sort of coming of age story, chronicling her journey to understand the relationship between herself and her guardian, and herself and her grief for her mother.
The story and prose are simple, and the story moves at a sedate but steady pace. Nothing about the book, however, struck me as particularly remarkable. The book doesn't seem to portray the main character's major struggles (grief, emotional abandonment, poverty) in a way that would resonate with children dealing with the same issues, and it certainly didn't treat those issues in a way that particularly resonated with me.
misajane79's review against another edition
3.0
That shiny gold medal on the cover makes me expect more from a book. Though I liked the characters, I was never in love. The writing was okay, and parts of it were wonderful. But I was frustrated at the lack of communication and how separate the adults and the children were in this group. There is always a divide between adults and children, but this seemed a bit ridiculous.
tueller42's review against another edition
5.0
I hadn't read this since fifth grade but it is one of those books that has lodged in my brain with really distinct images. Though, I cannot imagine Ms. Aluli saying scrotum aloud to a class of fifth graders but she must have. Anyway, it was worth a relisten.
margeryb's review against another edition
2.0
As someone who reviews notable children's book for a work committee and has personally been working my way through the Newbery winner list... I didn't like this book. It uses a lot of the same tropes of other more literary skewing notable children's books but does nothing special with them. The characters are quirky, but not quirky enough to be actually humorous (say, like Dead End in Norvelt). The story of unconventional family dynamics (dead parents and guardians stepping into that role) while dealing with grief is done better in Missing May (another Newbery winner I recently read). The only refreshing part of the story was Bridgette, but... I don't know... haven't fun into a lot of French characters in kid lit and I think was the only thing that stood out to be as different in this book.
While the sentence-to-sentence writing was lovely, I -- an adult who has read much more difficult books than this -- found the story...boring. It was just a lot of observations piled on top of each other and then only brought together, sort of, by the very end, but by then I had forgotten them already... and other elements weren't set up at all. The story needed a strong through line/plot/tension/something and it sorely lacked that. If I could barely bring myself back to it, I don't imagine a kid would be drawn into it either.
The star rating may be unnecessarily harsh. It's a competent enough book and I usually give competent if not stellar/special books three stars. But the stars are less comparing it to all books in general but to other Newbery winner and notable children books on similar topics. And this was just treaded familiar ground that other authors and books did better.
While the sentence-to-sentence writing was lovely, I -- an adult who has read much more difficult books than this -- found the story...boring. It was just a lot of observations piled on top of each other and then only brought together, sort of, by the very end, but by then I had forgotten them already... and other elements weren't set up at all. The story needed a strong through line/plot/tension/something and it sorely lacked that. If I could barely bring myself back to it, I don't imagine a kid would be drawn into it either.
The star rating may be unnecessarily harsh. It's a competent enough book and I usually give competent if not stellar/special books three stars. But the stars are less comparing it to all books in general but to other Newbery winner and notable children books on similar topics. And this was just treaded familiar ground that other authors and books did better.