May 23, 2013: Lucky Penny Day.

I haven't been able to find anything about who started Lucky Penny Day, or why.

Which leads me to realize that creating these "national days" is a pretty serious free-for-all. CLEARLY WE NEED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT AND COME UP WITH SOME NEW ONES.

Anyway, despite the dubious nature of this "holiday", I shall point you back to my old post about Jennifer L. Holm's Penny from Heaven anyway, because I'll use any old excuse to highlight a good book:

My affection for Holm's characters just sort of crept up on me—I hadn't realized how much I cared about them until Something Bad Happened and I found myself crying. 

The story itself starts off quiet and lightly comic: Penny tells the reader about her various family members and has some adventures with her cousin Frankie. She does mention the fact that her mother hardly ever talks about her father, and never talks about the circumstances of his death—that in itself was enough to alert me to the fact that there was Rough Stuff Ahead.