Just Lucky

Written by Melanie Florence
Second Story Press
978-77260-104-6
248 pp.
Ages 13-18
September 2019

Though the beginning of her life was less than stable, born of a gambling-addicted mother (hence Lucky’s unusual first name) with a crack habit, much of Lucky Robinson’s fifteen years were spent in a loving home with her grandparents. But, when her grandmother’s dementia advances rapidly after Grandpa’s death, Lucky’s life takes a staggering turn that disconnects her from the support and security she's always known.

Though Lucky is aware that Grandma’s forgetfulness is becoming serious, she is unprepared for the fire Grandma accidentally starts. But at the hospital, the Children’s Aid Society is called to take responsibility for the underage Lucky as Grandma receives care. Sadly even a phone call to her ghost of a mother brings nothing except clarity that Lucky is well rid of a woman more concerned about her boyfriend and the proceeds from the potential sale of Lucky's grandparents' house. As such, Lucky begins the complex journey into the foster care system.

Her first foster placement is with the hyper-religious Mary and Robert Wilson and their teen son Bobby. Lucky tries to be accommodating, submitting to Mary’s requirements for chaste dress, the saying of grace before meals and homeschooling. But a threat within requires Lucky defend herself both with a knife and with the truth to those who refuse to acknowledge inappropriate behaviours by those entrusted with her care. The consequence is that child care worker Cynthia drags victimized Lucky to a second home.

With her new living accommodations with foster parents Sarah and Edward and teens Jake and Charlie, Lucky begins to feel a little luckier. Though home is more stable and welcoming, Lucky must contend with racism and bullying at school at the hands of Elyse who has her sights on Jake and sees his interest in Lucky as competition. Victimized again for being Indigenous, and for defending Charlie, a boy from the Dominican, Lucky is expelled, steering her to yet another foster family but also to the school she attended with best friend Ryan.

Though Lucky continues to hold onto the hope that she will be reunited with her grandmother who has both good and bad days, when Grandma is moved to a care facility, Lucky starts to wonder whether she has any luck at all and may ever again have a place of home where she will feel safe.

Melanie Florence who touched us with her award-winning picture books Stolen Words (Second Story Press, 2017) and Missing Nimâmâ (Clockwise Press, 2015) takes a simple germ of an idea–that of a child in foster care–and makes it in bigger story, as it should be. Entering foster care is a life-altering experience from which some children may or may not recover.  As in her earlier picture books about residential schools and missing and murdered Indigenous women, the story is simple but the message monumental. Not all lives are easy and picture perfect and Lucky's certainly is not. Not all foster homes are great or horrible.  Not all foster families are caring, though that is their mandate. Lucky's story evolves from a tragedy that snowballs into overwhelming disaster. Though I’m sure, as the saying goes, it could have been far worse, Lucky's story, which is one of trial and hardship, does end with some semblance of good fortune and contentedness, perhaps even hope for a happy ending.

Harvey Comes Home

Written by Colleen Nelson

Illustrations by Tara Anderson

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-097-0

224 pp.

Ages 8-12

September 2019

A scent, a touch, a colour, a voice. They can draw memories. And memories can take you places. They can take you away from the present and towards something else. They can take you to a past that needs to be remembered or give direction to follow forward. And they can take you home in more ways than one.
 
Harvey is a West Highland Terrier who is left in the care of a dog-sitter while Maggie and her family go on holidays. While they are away, Harvey gets out of his yard and "His curiosity takes him farther and farther away from his home." (pg. 18) After several days away, scrambling for food, attacked by another dog, distracted from a rescue, Harvey is found by eleven-year-old Austin who helps his Grandpa out after school at the Brayside Retirement Villa. Though his mother and grandfather insist that Harvey's owners must be looking for him and that Austin needs to take him to the shelter to help locate them, Austin lies about his efforts, hopeful that he'll be able to keep the dog.

During the day, Harvey stays with Grandpa Phillip at Brayside where everyone, staff and residents alike, fawn over the Westie who acts as an unofficial therapy dog. But when Austin arrives, Harvey accompanies him on his chores. When the reticent Mr. Pickering takes a liking to Harvey, Austin finds the ninety-six-year-old man finally willing to talk and share about his past. He talks of his own dog, General, and of growing up during the 1930s. Though Mr. Pickering is sometimes confused about who Austin is, whether his own wife is still alive, and what Brayside is, he goes to a place of memory with Harvey by his side. As for Harvey, when he "sits beside Mr. Pickering, he drifts off into a place of contentment." (pg. 69)

While Mr. Pickering reminisces about living during the Depression and his complicated friendship with an abandoned girl named Bertie, Harvey's memories of Maggie are fading to elusive scents and sounds, Austin continues in his uncomfortable lies, and Maggie searches desperately for the Westie. Colleen Nelson's title may give away a happy ending for Harvey but it's wrapped in a complex tug-of-war of emotions as Mr. Pickering tells his heartrending stories about hardships and tragedies and lessons about forgiveness are learned.

Told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of Harvey, Maggie and Austin, Harvey Comes Home is not just a story about a dog lost and found. It's a story about the bonds between human and dog. These are the bonds that tie us in love and gratitude, responsibility and empathy. They are the ones that give us our humanity via our benevolence for others. But Harvey Comes Home is also about the power of memory to bring us home. I will admit that Colleen Nelson's story brought me to tears time and time again, as an aging Mr. Pickering grabs at his memories, as Bertie survives against all odds, and as Harvey and General are loved and love.  Colleen Nelson always tells a good story (see her YA titles Sadia, Blood Brothers, Finding Hope, and The Fall for a great sampling) but, in her first middle-grade novel, she is able to grab the reader's heartstrings while blending a dog story with an intergenerational relationship and embedding profound reflections on the Depression and the Dust Bowl. It's a complete package as Harvey's, Maggie's and Austin's stories converge, integrated with heart and important messages about connecting with others and forgiveness for mistakes made when scared, hurt or alone.

Harvey Comes Home will make dog-lovers hug their animals and children ask their grandparents to share their stories from their own childhoods, bringing all a little closer and giving life to new memories for all.

From Harvey Comes Home by Colleen Nelson, illus. by Tara Anderson

The Missing Dog is Spotted

Written by Jessica Scott Kerrin

Groundwood Books

978-1-55498-726-9

204 pp.

Ages 8-12

March, 2015

Two years ago, Jessica Scott Kerrin brought us The Spotted Dog Last Seen  (Groundwood, 2013) about Grade 6 student volunteers who help the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade and learn from the elderly Mr. Creelman and his cronies about reading epitaphs and cleaning grave markers.  But there was much more to that story, including a school’s time capsule, a spotted dog and a Mystery Book Club, and The Missing Dog is Spotted takes us to an earlier time to introduce those critical elements, while providing a great story in itself.

Sixth graders Trevor and Loyola may have a secret and unspoken pact that “under absolutely no circumstances were they to appear together side by side” (pg. 12) because of the  humongous disparity in their heights, but it seems the universe doesn’t know about that agreement, because, when they get out of volunteering together on the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade, they are then thrust together at the animal shelter to walk dogs for the elderly.  While the two kids walk their six dogs, they soon realize that everyone is more focused on the dogs, not them.  That’s okay since they will need to work together to help solve the mystery of Mr. Fester’s missing dog, Buster.  And that mystery is complicated.

The Missing Dog is Spotted may be based on Trevor and Loyola’s volunteering with dogs but it’s a far greater story about trying to do the right thing, accepting that sometimes things go wrong and can never be fixed, and guilt can be brutal.  Of course, I’m not giving away much about who feels such guilt or about what because it’s irrelevant–though you'll learn it soon enough when you read the book– since guilt is universal, even for those who could take a lesson in accepting responsibility for making the lives of others more difficult than necessary.  But Jessica Scott Kerrin doesn’t saturate The Missing Dog is Spotted with that guilt, though there is that anguish that is always involved when an animal goes missing and even more so when that animal belongs to an elderly person who adores that pet.  Instead, Jessica Scott Kerrin holds the angst back and ensures that The Missing Dog is Spotted remains a strong middle grade book that focuses on the concerns and misunderstandings that children and pre-teens might recognize, and still provides a happy ending, for a dog at least.