Orwell's Luck Book

When a wounded wild rabbit is found in the front yard, he is given a good home and a memorable name by a twelve-year-old with a liking for basketball, the trombone, and the newspaper’s daily horoscope. But Orwell is no ordinary rabbit. It soon seems that he is attempting to reward his young caretaker by mysteriously sending coded messages in the form of predictions: the final score of the Super Bowl, advance notice of a pop quiz at school, tomorrow’s winning lottery number! Can this little rabbit foretell the future? Can Orwell actually make luck happen? Here is a magical and heartwarming story about kindness, friendship, and hope in the shadow of fortune’s ever-turning wheel.

Publishers Weekly

Quirky details and a warm, precocious 12-year-old narrator add up to an engaging and imaginative novel. While the plot is seemingly straightforward, the unnamed narrator subtly--occasionally too subtly--divulges clues to the inner workings of her life. The story begins as she finds an injured rabbit in her front yard and works hard to help him recover. She feeds Orwell apples, plays him a concert on her trombone and eventually secures the aid of a kindly vet who restores movement to the rabbit's back legs. Orwell repays her by sending secret messages in the newspaper horoscopes, on the weather page and even in movie credits. Ranging from prophetic to practical to philosophical, the messages eventually teach her that "there is always more than one way of looking at things." Between Orwell's bulletins, the narrator off-handedly addresses less mystical dramas, such as her father's sudden unemployment and her loneliness at a new school. She delivers these details with great delicacy, as though she doesn't want to bother her audience ("My father's job during this troublesome time in our lives consisted primarily of buying lottery tickets"). The audience will have to study her words carefully to get the full picture, but the surface layer of the story is intriguing in and of itself. Ages 10-14. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.