The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

Lucky is a thoughtful 10 year old girl that has seen a lot of tragedy in her short life. Her mother died two years ago and she has a father who sends money has never had the urge to meet her. Lucky's guardian is Brigitte, her father's other ex-wife, and Lucky is scared that one day she'll have enough of life in their tiny desert town and move back to Paris.

Besides Lucky's rough life, she lives in a unique place. Hard Pan is a desert town in California, population: 43. There are windstorms, snakes hiding in the dryer and inedible government cheese. Lucky's best friend is obsessed with tying knots and the only other kid in town (it seems) is another abandoned child--a 5-year-old neighbor that alternately annoys and entertains Lucky.

This was decent. I agree with the opinion that better books have won the Newbery. It was sweet and comforting. Books about abandoned kids, for kids, tend to be.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a very talented person. The book begins with the murder of an entire family of four except one--the toddler--who has boldly wandered out of his crib and crawled up the street to the neighborhood graveyard. The ghosts of the graveyard and a mysterious creature named Silas adopt the child, offering him their own unique protection from the man who killed his family, and still wants to kill him. The residents of the graveyard name him Nobody Owens--Bod for short. The book follows Bod as he grows up into a young man. He has a series of adventures, which are really well done and interesting, and eventually confronts his killer as well as the prospect of growing up and leaving the nest--in the case the graveyard--and joining the world of the living.

I really liked the feel of this book A LOT, even though I'm not a graveyard/ghost lover usually. Gaiman does an amazing job of mixing warm and friendly with cool and macabre to make a story that is exceedingly charming. What I really liked about this was the way that the graveyard was a peaceful place and almost never a scary one. In fact, Bod, having been raised in a graveyard, rarely feels fear or other emotions with much passion at all. Rather than making the book dull, it just gives it a sense of simplicity and this somehow adds to it.

Booktalk: My name is Nobody. I live in a graveyard. My friends include ghosts, ghouls, night-ghasts and the Hounds of Hell. These people are all dead, but I'm not. I'm as alive as you. But I live here in the graveyard because in the world of the living I'm in danger, and here with the dead I can be safe. When I was a baby a man with a long knife came into my house and tried to kill me. He's still trying to find me, and he's getting closer...