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The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had: Summary and book reviews of The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine, plus links to an excerpt from The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had and a biography of Kristin Levine.

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had
by Kristin Levine
Hardcover: Jan 2009,
272 pages.
Paperback: Sep 2010,
272 pages.

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First book/First Novel


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BOOK SUMMARY

The last thing Harry “Dit” Sims expects when Emma Walker comes to town is to become friends. Proper-talking, brainy Emma doesn’t play baseball or fish too well, but she sure makes Dit think, especially about the differences between black and white. But soon Dit is thinking about a whole lot more when the town barber, who is black, is put on trial for a terrible crime. Together Dit and Emma come up with a daring plan to save him from the unthinkable.

Set in 1917 and inspired by the author’s true family history, this is the poignant story of a remarkable friendship and the perils of small-town justice
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Middle-grade readers are in luck. Levine has written a richly-realized tale of a powerful best-friendship and a boy's passage into manhood during a shameful and violent period in America's past.  (Reviewed by Jo Perry).

Full Review Members Only (835 words).

Media Reviews

  School Library Journal
This spirited, early-20th-century coming-of-age story presents a small-town cast of well-drawn characters, an unlikely friendship, engaging adventures, and poignant realizations.

  Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Tension builds just below the surface of this energetic, seamlessly narrated first novel set in small-town Alabama in 1917. Ages 10+

  Kirkus Reviews
[T]he growth of their friendship, along with Dit's emerging moral conscience, make this a fine debut novel by an author to watch. Ages 10-14.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by lov3 m3
loved it
I loved it, and she visited our school! Mary G. Porter it was great.

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Shay
The best bad luck i eever had
I thought it was going to be boring but when I got the book and started to read it my mom could not get me to listen to her at all! It took me 3 days to finish the book. I think everyone that says that book looks boring to pick it up and read...   Read More

Rated 3 of 5 of 5 by amanda
the best bad luck i ever had
I think the book was very boring in the beginning because, well, it just listed what they did in like the first 30 chapters. And then the book got a plot in like the last part of the book - but the end was really really good:D

Moundville, Alabama - Largest City in North America
By present day standards Moundville was a small town in 1917 and still is today, but according to information presented by the Moundville Archaeological Park, 800 years ago it was the location of possibly the largest city in North America.   The present-day town is named after the 26 prehistoric burial mounds that are all that visibly remains of the Mississippian culture that lived on the site from about A.D. 1000 to 1450. 

At its most populous, the conurbation spanned about 300 acres (about half a square mile) and had a population of about one thousand with an estimated further ten thousand living in the surrounding valley. Excavated burial sites have yielded grave goods from a socially complex society. Maize sustained the community and the nobility traded copper, mica, galena, and marine shell. For unknown reasons, it seems that by A.D. 1350, Moundville was used only as a ceremonial and religious center and had been effectively abandoned by the 1500's....

Continued...  Beyond the Book (members only)

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These are 2 of the 4 readalike suggestions for The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.


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