The Good Luck Cat

 Harjo, Joy. The Good Luck Cat. San Diego: Harcourt, 2000.

The Good Luck Cat is a great book for young elementary students.  The book tells a normal story about a young Native American girl who has a lucky cat.  She tells how the cat has gone through her nine lives.  The story of the cat’s ninth life is the cat disappearing.  In the end the cat, Woogie does find her way back to the girl’s house.  There are only a couple references to Native American culture. On the second page of the book the girl tells the reader that her aunt gave her money to buy new shoes she would like to wear to the spring powwow. Some other information is given when the girl tells about Woogie’s eighth life.  The girl wanted to take Woogie with her and her family to the powwow they were attending.  So the girl hid her cat in a box with her family’s outfits for the powwow.  From the picture that goes along with this page you can see that the outfits the girl mentions look like traditional powwow clothing. 

Joy Harjo is an insider author from the Muscogee tribe. Harjo has received The American Indian Distinguished Achievement Award, two NEA Creative Writing fellowships, the Delmore Schwartz Award, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Witter Bynner Grant for Poetry.