4 Stars
One Liner: Heartwarming

1912, Michigan
Lucy is an eleven-year-old spirited French-Ojibwe orphan sent to live on the tiny Harmony Island with the large Martins family. She misses her papa (a sailor) and hopes to find the legendary ruby necklace he wanted to find but couldn’t.
Living on an island is hard when Lucy is afraid of water). Moreover, adjusting to the new life with the Anishinaabe family, the lighthouse keepers, isn’t easy. But no one could say Lucy can’t handle hard.
If only things were a little easier. Maybe a bit of effort is exactly what’s needed.
The story comes in Lucy’s third-person POV.

My Thoughts:
A book with a lighthouse, a title with alliteration, and an intriguing premise- do I need more to grab this one? Of course not.
The book starts with Lucy eavesdropping on a conversation. We get a glimpse into her character and begin to understand her delicate position. The poor girl lost her parents and guardian and is now thrust into an unknown family, that too, a large one.
Lucy is an engaging MC. She is far from perfect and often switches to different personalities as a coping mechanism. She’s a Princess one moment, an Actress the next, and a Small Waif immediately afterward. These define her means of coping with the sudden changes in the situation and her inability to handle them without feeling overwhelmed. I love how this enriches her arc throughout the book.
While the ruby necklace is important, it is not the central plot. The main theme is about Lucy finding her place in the Martins family. It’s not easy for both parties, as we can clearly see. The Martins already have six children ranging from high school to pre-nursery. Inserting an eleven-year-old longing for a family is not a stress-free task.
The setting and the lighthouse descriptions are clear enough to visualize the place but so elaborate that kids will lose interest. It helps that the island is super tiny (a smart move). There’s a map, which broke into a dozen pieces on my Kindle. Maybe it’ll look better in PDF on a computer screen. I wish we could see the drawing of the ruby necklace, too.
The Martins family, despite the large number, is easy to track. Everyone has a distinct personality, some rude, some sweet, some bored, but even they change as they get to know Lucy and accept her presence.
We are introduced to a few more characters who play minor but crucial roles in the plot’s progress.
There’s some adventure and one risky scene in the climax. It is essential to the plot and handled without feeling OTT.
The inclusion of Anishinaabemowin's words and Mrs. Martin’s determination to teach their native language to the children is so wonderful. I love it. As a pagan, I cannot stress enough the importance of this statement. Frame it, I say!
It may be fashionable these days to leave one’s heritage behind, but one day, you’ll regret not knowing the things your ancestors did.
There’s a glossary of Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language) and French terms at the end, followed by acknowledgments. This helped understand the meanings of the words better, though most were explained within the story.

To summarize, The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry is a heartwarming, beautiful, and steady-paced book about a young girl facing her fears and finding a family to call her own. It’s also about grief, mourning, and being optimistic about life.
Thank you, NetGalley and Holiday House, for the eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I was absolutely fascinated by the synopsis and the offered representation of a ojibwe heroine, (my best friend is ojibwe). As I started reading, what stood out to me immediately was the flatness of the dialogue and racially problematic descriptions of the servant (mamie) as the introduction to our heroine’s dilemma.

As a huge fan of Anne of Green Gables, I really wanted to like this story of a plucky orphan, but found the introduction to the story off putting. I think focusing on the orphan discussion without the introduction of mamie or her role until later (if needed at all?) will do more to pull a reader in faster and drive the story forward.

Such a sweet story. Lucy’s an adorable main character, I loved her narration. She’s got this fun and imaginative outlook to life while also processing grief and navigating her new family. It made for an emotional yet endearing story and I really enjoyed it.

This was a cute little read and I loved it.
Lucy is a fascinating character whom I fell in love with instantly. She pretends she's many characters that I found waiting to see which one she'd become at any given moment. She certainly kept me on my toes along the other Martin children.
I really didn't like Ansel that much bc I don't care much for know it alls.
I loved the idea of living in a lighthouse. I think that'd be the coolest thing!
Lake Superior is my favorite lake so I was excited about getting this book. It did not disappoint.
This was a great adventure! Books like this makes me feel happy.
I still love these kinds of books because they give me a break from reading historical books and suspense. I love a fun read every now and then and this book was wonderful!
There is some mystery involved which I liked too.
5 stars for some excellent writing and making me feel like I was a part of this story.
Lighthouses save lives. I admire the people who still man them.
The cover of this book and the Lighthouse itself made me want to read this book.
I highly recommend.
My thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book. I was NOT required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a lovely story about the orphan daughter of a ship's captain who finds herself unexpectedly living in a working lighthouse with a large family of Acadian ancestry which agrees to takes her in. And Lucy Landry is not an easy child to integrate into anyone's family!

I will confess, I did at times find Lucy's behaviour a little obnoxious, albeit stemming from insecurity. But of course, in the end, everything falls into place. Including Lucy's behavioral issues - some of which can be explained by her unusual upbringing.

The family that takes her in are delightful characters, and the story has (perhaps deliberate) echoes of Lucy Montgomery's Anne.

I found a few elements of the story a bit implausible, including the search for the necklace and the unexpected rescue, but overall, this was an enjoyable and very wholesome read.

Happy to see an Indigenous author writing middle grade historical fiction! As an adult, I loved reading this! The emotional journey was amazing over the span of the book! I live near Lake Superior and will definitely be recommending this for the bookstore I work at!

What an amazing book! Not only was the history well-researched, but I loved the representation and the characters. I am a bit old but I could resonate with Selena's toughness. Also, as a Canadian living near one of the Great Lakes, I always appreciate books set in a place that feels like home. So... yeah... the imagery was really well done!!!

<3

For this level of reading, I think this book was overall an enjoyable read. Lucy is a sweet girl who lost not only her father, but also the woman who was taking care of her. She gets sent to live with the Martin's, a family who lives at a lighthouse on Lake Superior.

I personally love the emotions and personalities we get from Lucy as she tries to cope with all of the negative emotions she is feeling. Between pretending to be a princess to embracing her small waif girl, I felt like I understood her energy. I hated how much the children of the Martin family treated her and didn't even give her a chance.

The beginning of the story really focused on the necklace and the search for it. I was hoping for a bit more of a hunt for it, but I feel like it really got found rather quickly. I thought it may take a couple trips to the shore to find it but that was incorrect. It makes sense for the type of book this is and the reading level/length though. In the end, I love that Lucy learned the importance of family, even if they aren't related to you. You can find family if you put those you love above yourself. Because of how she treated the necklace and what she did in the end, I think it was okay that the story didn't focus much on the hunt for the treasure.

I still don't completely understand Jules besides being a character who knows the history of the area, but really he wasn't needed in the book and everything would've been the same without him. Besides helping Mr. Martin with the rescue, his role wasn't much after they bought the fixer upper boat.

"It takes courage to be a keeper...It takes not only intelligence but bravery, and the soul of a lifesaver. You have to value other people above yourself if you want to live at a lighthouse."

I love that in the end this is the lesson Lucy learns because it is extremely important for kids to learn this early on.

Lovely and wholesome coming-of-stage story. Quite honestly felt like a Studio Ghibli movie playing in my head. I loved the characters and their developments, and I loved how realistic and unapologetic Lucy was as she struggled to connect with her heritage and to belong with her new family. Their cultural heritage was also an important part of the story—such an important read, especially for middle-graders.

thankyou netgalley for the arc. all opinions are my own!

okay first of all: 5+ stars.
secondly: ANNA ROSE JOHNSON SMASHED IT!!

This was such an amazing historical fiction. HF fans should totally dive in and start pre-ording this absolutely delightful read❤️

This book was a really lovely book about a girl who struggles to fit in with her new family, she often feels like she doesn't belong. The only thing that I didn't like about this book was that there were errors, such as 2 or 3 words being joined together, these errors made some parts of the book a bit hard to read. Other than the errors I think that this book was really good.

Well, I just loved this one. Heartwarming, wholesome, gripping, family-focused, historically accurate in time and sensibility, with a great resolution. Lucy Landry is a flawed heroine in the best way—she’s endearing, even when she’s making mistakes, and it’s impossible not to root for her as she tries to fit in with her new family. Johnson also has a remarkable ability to write evocative and believable settings. I’ve never been to Michigan, but after reading both her books (The Star That Always Stays, her debut, was also fantastic), I feel like I have travelled there. She's similarly gifted in portraying character. Besides Lucy (a truly luminous character!), I was impressed by how she made so many characters come alive, including Lucy's own deceased father, who never actually appears in any scenes yet feels fully realized. I also love the subtle but strong message of Christian faith (it's never heavy-handed), which adds to the feeling of authenticity in time and place.

This book deserves all the awards. I also hope Anna Rose Johnson starts a trend for more books like this to be published—gently old-fashioned, wholesome, with sparkling prose, great pacing, and vivid characters. It reads like a classic family (or classroom) read aloud, something that a broad range of ages, from 5 to grown-up, can appreciate. And it’s just so GOOD. Johnson is such a wonderfully talented author. Bravo!

It's 1912, and burdened by multiple deaths, ten year old Lucy is being handed off to a new family. Lucy's father died searching for a necklace from a shipwreck, and now young Lucy is determined to finish what he started even if she has to combat her fear of the ocean to do so. She moves in with the Martins; husband, wife, and six kids - who live in a lighthouse.

Often slipping into characters of her own making, Lucy is able to gain courage to deal with things that she may otherwise struggle with. And struggle she does, since living with the Martin's is no easy feat. The other kids don't warm up to her, she keeps messing up their careful way of life, and there's the fact she's living in a lighthouse near where her father died.

I enjoyed this book, it was well written and the characters felt real. The book connects the reader to the characters and plot through the brighter-than-life main character, and use of local and familial history. There was beautiful ties to Lucy and the Martin's indigenous heritage, that allowed the characters to connect to each other outside their familial bond.