Following her grandfather's sudden death and the worsening of her grandmother's dementia, 15-year-old Lucky Robinson is placed in foster care, where she encounters several very different families.Abandoned by her irresponsible mother years ago, Lucky lives with her grandparents in an unnamed Canadian town. After her widowed grandmother accidentally sets the house on fire, Lucky is removed by Children's Aid and brought to her first foster home. There, she must contend with a superreligious, conservative household and a predatory foster father. Lucky is brave, resourceful, and fierce in fending him off. Subsequent homes are not dangerous, which gives Lucky the stability to grapple with her grandmother's worsening Alzheimer's. An appealing thread woven through the book is Lucky's love of comic books, which offer her a way to bond with friends and foster siblings. Lucky is Cree, and she is bullied with racial slurs by a mean girl in one of her schools; her response, while understandable, has significant repercussions. This fast-paced novel is a sensitive portrayal of the challenges of coping with dementia, and the exploration of the feelings related to having a loved one suffering this condition feels authentic. Lucky's best friend is Ryan, a blond boy who is in love with another boy and wants to ask him to the prom; he has homophobic Christian parents.An uplifting and hopeful #ownvoices novel revealing the complexities of foster care and the heartbreak of dementia. (Fiction. 13-18)

From its opening pages, this affecting novel of family lost and found doesn-t pull punches. Regarding her absentee mother, 15-year-old Cree-Canadian Lucky Robinson says, -I-m not even sure I could pick her out of a police lineup at this point. To be honest, I secretly believe that I-ll be asked to do that someday.- After her grandfather dies suddenly and her grandmother-s dementia ramps up, Lucky is thrust from the relative protection of their home into the tumult of the foster care system. In a series of placements, she encounters hyper-religious homeschoolers, a sexual predator, ethnic discrimination, and foster siblings who are alternately welcoming and hostile. The writing is short on physical imagery and Lucky-s interior life, creating missed opportunities for character development, and readers may wish for deeper insights into Lucky-s true responses to her circumstances. The dialogue-heavy story moves along briskly, and Florence (He Who Dreams) portrays Lucky-s reality with candor and realism. A welcome addition to a growing body of work about life in foster care. Ages 12-up. (Sept.)