ISBN-10: 9781416975571
ISBN-13: 978-1416975571
Ages 9 to 12
Newbery Medal Book

Lucky, age ten, can't wait another day. The meanness gland in her heart and the crevices full of questions in her brain make running away from Hard Pan, California (population 43), the rock-bottom only choice she has.

It's all Brigitte's fault -- for wanting to go back to France. Guardians are supposed to stay put and look after girls in their care! Instead Lucky is sure that she'll be abandoned to some orphanage in Los Angeles where her beloved dog, HMS Beagle, won't be allowed. She'll have to lose her friends Miles, who lives on cookies, and Lincoln, future U.S. president (maybe) and member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. Just as bad, she'll have to give up eavesdropping on twelve-step anonymous programs where the interesting talk is all about Higher Powers. Lucky needs her own -- and quick.

But she hadn't planned on a dust storm.

Or needing to lug the world's heaviest survival-kit backpack into the



VOLUME DISCOUNT:
9 to 19 copies: 10% discount
20 or more copies: 20% discount


NOTE TO PARENTS/EDUCATORS: Early in 2007, the Newbery Award-winning novel The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, became the subject of a dispute among authors and librarians across the country over its use of the word “scrotum.” Following a report in the New York Times, the story of Patron’s challenged book became national news, and some school librarians have hesitated to purchase the book for their school collections.

Susan Patron, the author of this book, is the Juvenile Materials Collection Manager at the Los Angeles Public Library and the author of five other books for children. Simon and Schuster, the publisher, asked her about the controversy over book and librarians’ role in defending the First Amendment.

The following was her response: "I believe it would be a form of arrogance for librarians to withhold access to a Newbery title from an entire service group based on reaction to a word. We librarians need to be clear as to our role. There is a difference between the librarian who is a judicious selector of materials and the librarian who puts herself in the role of arbiter of what is acceptable in literature. Our job as librarians is to connect kids with books and information, to stimulate and encourage reading. We need to stay focused on that larger picture and let parents determine appropriateness of materials for their own children from the wide selection that we provide in our collections."