Parents' Guide to The Lucky Ones

Parents need to know that in The Lucky Ones by Linda Williams Jackson (A Sky Full of Stars, Midnight Without a Moon), 11-year-old Ellis Earl Brown learns from an influential teacher to dream big. Ellis Earl's father is deceased, and Ellis Earl lives in a rundown two-room house with his mother, who works as a domestic, his siblings, and sometimes their cousins -- totaling more than a dozen people. His teacher, Mr. Foster, teaches him about current events (including the civil rights movement). He also encourages him to read by giving him a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, whose main character Ellis Earl deeply identifies with. There are realistic mentions of the violence that was happening at the time, such as White people killing Black people for attempting to vote and the Emmett Till killing. Detailed scenes of verbal abuse may trouble some readers. There's a long scene where preteen children are harassed after entering a segregated restaurant with their teachers. Children walk through an angry mob of people protesting against racial progress. The dialogue contains the terms "Negro" and "colored" as they were used in 1967, along with a discussion of the term "Black." (The author substitutes "Negro" in places where irate White people would most likely have used the "N" word.)