Lizzy and the Good Luck Girl

August 15, 2018
Lizzy is a big believer in signs. She's convinced they portend the future--good or bad--if she can just interpret them correctly.Ever since her mother lost an unborn baby after a car accident two years earlier, Lizzy, 12, has been searching for signs that good luck will come, especially now that her mother's next pregnancy is almost over. After she and her best friend discover a runaway 11-year-old, Charlotte, hiding in an abandoned house, the pair team up to help the child. Charlotte has left home to try to force her separated parents to rethink divorce plans. But since the runaway might just represent good luck (because she has a four-leaf clover drawn on her hand), Lizzy does little to encourage the girl to go home, instead hiding her in her own closet. Only after she finally reveals to Charlotte the good-luck-charm role she's inadvertently playing does the younger girl decide to return home. Gentle Lizzy's need for a happy outcome for her mother makes her reliance on magical thinking plausible, although occasionally, her first-person narration leans toward a more authorial voice than appropriate. While Lizzy is fully realized, other characters are mostly distinguished by being exceptionally nice, limiting conflict in the tale. The book assumes the white default.Genial and pleasant but not exceptionally compelling despite dramatic scenarios. (Fiction. 9-12)

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October 1, 2018
Lizzy, 12, lives above her family’s diner, the Thumbs-Up, in East Thumb, Maine. Ever since a car accident two years earlier caused her mother to lose the baby she was carrying, Lizzy has been watchful for signs of things to come: when leaves swirl at her feet in the wind, for example, does it signify trouble brewing or an opportunity? Lizzy and her best friend, Joss, volunteer at an animal shelter and are knitting cat sweaters that they hope to sell to raise funds. When they follow a stray into an abandoned building, they discover Charlotte, a girl who has run away to escape trouble at home. After the building burns down, Lizzy invites Charlotte to hide in her bedroom, in part because she sees Charlotte’s temporary tattoo of a four-leaf clover as a sign of good luck for her family’s soon-to-arrive baby. But when Charlotte’s family searches desperately for her (and it turns out that cats don’t care for sweaters), Lizzy must learn to accept uncertainty. Characters are fully formed, and town details bring the reader into her world. Lizzy’s struggles to adjust when events don’t go according to plan are easily relatable in this coming-of-age journey that celebrates embracing the messiness of real life. Ages 8–12. Agent: Linda Epstein.

October 1, 2018

Gr 3-5-Twelve-year-old Lizzy and her best friend Joss meet a runaway in an abandoned house. A firm believer in signs since a car accident two years ago, Lizzy invites Charlotte into her room when she spots a tiny four leaf clover on her hand. Lubner offers a tale with both humor and heartache: a project to knit cat sweaters benefiting a local shelter unexpectedly produces a runaway rebel and Lizzy's thematic sandwich creations amuse. Although somewhat simplistically resolved, especially given the age of the characters, the poignant issues of Charlotte's separating parents and Lizzy's mother's depression at the loss of their baby in the accident bring depth. Short sentences and delightful details create a similar air to recent quirky classics such as Sheila Turnage's Three Times Lucky. The cast of all-white characters might be typical of a small Maine town outside of Portland but feels a bit too conventional. VERDICT A lightweight piece of contemporary realism with atmospheric writing.-Erin Reilly-Sanders, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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