The Thing about Luck Book Review by Cynthia Kadohata

  





Written by Cynthia Kadohata
Illustrated By Julia Kuo 

Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers in 2013

ISBN: 978-1442474659

Plot Summary: Summer is a 12 year old girl who lives with her family in Kansas. She deals with a bout of malaria which almost takes her life and makes her not trust mosquitos anymore even though she sees them all the time. Her family is hired by Parker Harvesting Company to pick crops. Her parents have to go back to Japan all of a sudden so she is left with her grandparents and her brother Jaz. They get sent to Texas to harvest there but end up in Oklahoma even though they didn't get to see the finished product in Texas. Summer completes the work that is set before her and she gets the full amount of the company when they head back to Kansas where she catches up with her parents and learns the value of hard work. 

Critical Analysis: The thing about luck is a coming of age story that shows many different aspects of what it means to be a part of a multigenerational family. Summer is the typical daughter who wants to do well and please her parents and grandparents but her life takes a turn that no one expected when her parents leave suddenly and she ends up needing to be the strong one in the family to keep everything going. The book focuses on Summer's growth into a young adult through the many trials and events that happens to her including getting malaria from the mosquito and having to move with her brother and grandparents down to Texas to do migrant farm work. Her coming of age includes her first kiss, learning about the traditional roles that women play with being in the kitchen and serving, and growing into a bigger role by taking over her grandpa's job when he becomes too worn out to continue. 

The illustrations add to the story especially when it comes to the harvesting portion of their journey as each step is shown and brings about a deeper level of understanding on just how hard that process is for a migrant worker with the amount of work that they are required to do in a very short amount of time. Kuo paints a picture with her illustrations about many of the trials and tribulations that Summer has to overcome and it pushes the story forward in a manner that makes it hard to put the book down once you have picked it up. 

Review: Kirkus

Twelve-year-old Summer and her Japanese-American family work every harvest season to earn money to pay their mortgage. But this year, they face unprecedented physical and emotional challenges. It has been a particularly hard-luck year. Among other strange occurrences, Summer was bitten by a stray, diseased mosquito and nearly died of malaria, and her grandmother suffers from sudden intense spinal pain. Now her parents must go to Japan to care for elderly relatives. So Summer, her brother and their grandparents must take on the whole burden of working the harvest and coping with one emergency after another. She writes a journal chronicling the frightening and overwhelming events, including endless facts about the mosquitoes she fears, the harvest process and the farm machinery that must be conquered. As the season progresses, her relationships with her grandparents and her brother change and deepen, reflecting her growing maturity. Her grandparents’ Japanese culture and perspective are treated lovingly and with gentle humor, as are her brother’s eccentricities. Kadohata makes all the right choices in structure and narrative. Summer’s voyage of self-discovery engages readers via her narration, her journal entries and diagrams, and even through her assigned book report of A Separate Peace.

Readers who peel back the layers of obsessions and fears will find a character who is determined, compassionate and altogether delightful. (Fiction. 10-14)

Connection: Students can learn more about migrant workers and what it means to be someone who has to move around to where the work is doing backbreaking work. 

https://www.migrantclinician.org/explore-migration/migrant-seasonal-farmworker.html#:~:text=A%20migrant%20farmworker%20is%20defined,remunerated%20employment%20in%20agricultural%20work.

More Books by Cynthia Kadohata

Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam ISBN 978-1416906384

A Million Shades of Gray ISBN 978-1442429192



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