Good Words on LUCKY from BCCB, a nice way to end the week!

My editor sent me this nice review for A WHOLE LOT OF LUCKY from BCCB:

You’d think winning the lottery would solve all your problems in an instant, but sixth-grader Hailee finds out it isn’t that easy. She has to go to a posh new school, for one thing, a circumstance that she did not foresee or desire, but her parents want her to have a better education than they had. Her new cell phone also brings new conflict with her parents, as she immediately becomes addicted to texting and checking her Facebooks updates. Her biggest challenges, though, are moral ones—now that she has access to the popular girls who live in the big houses, will she continue to do what she knows is right for her, like joining the Library Club, or sacrifice her principles to earn the favor of girls who don’t share her values? Hailee has a fresh, quirky outlook, peppered with wryly humorous observations that ring both wise and age-appropriate. Her direct questions to the reader as she ponders moral questions create a friendly intimacy, and readers will be gratified that she doesn’t always make bad choices, even when it’s tempting to do so. She’s got a down-home relationship to church on Sundays that threads through her decision-making in ways that many readers will relate to, and the changes that the lottery win makes in her daily life are small enough to insert a healthy dose of reality into that cherished fantasy. She also bookishly sets her emotional troubles in the context of familiar middle-grade novels, a trait that amps up both her likability and her credibility. Readers will definitely feel as though they have made a new friend in Hailee.

1 comments:

Kimbra Kasch said...

So cool - congrats!