Celebrating Banned Books Week

Banned! The Higher Power of Lucky

It might just be the one book that made me want to write children's literature (Okay, maybe the exact equation is more like: HP of Lucky + The Kneebone Boy + Freak the Mighty + Holes = Gail Shepherd chained to a desk trying to channel the 12-year-old mind). By the time I even got to the offending word on page one, I was totally hooked. In Susan Patron's Newbery-winning piece of genius, The Higher Power of Lucky, we come upon 10-year-old  Lucky Trimble, "crouched in a wedge of shade behind the dumpster" eavesdropping on a 12-Step meeting. Short Sammy is explaining how he hit rock bottom.

Sammy told of the day when he had drank half a gallon of rum listening to Johnny Cash all day in his parked '62 Cadillac, then fallen out of the car when he saw a rattlesnake biting his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.