Listening for Lucca

I picked up Listening for Lucca with trepidation because (and don’t repeat this!) I often judge books by their cover!  Not, unlike the kids I suggest books to.  The cover we have for this book, looks like an old fashioned cover with a painted image and washed out colors, it definitely didn’t look like the cover of a book published in 2013.  But, I’ve heard the buzz surrounding this book, so I picked up and I’m so glad I did.

Written by Suzanne LaFleur, who also wrote Eight Keys, you can check out my review, Listening for Lucca is a interesting story that crosses a number of genres – children with disabilities, supernatural, and historical are a few of the parts of this story that make it so intriguing.  Siena’s family moves to an old house on the coast of Maine in the hopes of helping her younger brother, Lucca, begin talking again, her parents also hope Siena will make some new friends and stop having so many life-like dreams about the past.

Little do her parents know that the past residents of the house had a similar problem, but Siena knows and hopes that by understanding and helping these ghosts, her family can begin to move forward.  I really liked how the story straddled the lines of history crossing between World War II and present day.  The characters were well developed and I though the plot moved forward at a good pace, my only concern was how the author chose to deal with the brother’s muteness.  Throughout most of the story, I thought it worked really well, but I didn’t like how Siena helped her brother choose to begin talking again.  I’m not sure if it was a believable ending to the story and more so, I don’t believe that’s how children should perceive how muteness is “fixed.”  That being said, much of the story involves “time travel” to some extent, so children may be able to separate fact from fiction in this example as well.

Quickly, getting back to the cover art, I found a different cover of the book and one that would be much more intriguing to me as well as to kids too!  See what you think!

You can visit Suzanne LaFleur’s website for more information about her work!

Title: Listening for Lucca
Author: Suzanne LaFleur
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Publication Date: 2013
Page Number: 229 pgs.