A house can be just a place to live but a home can be so much more than that. It can be where you feel safe, where you feel 
loved, and where you feel comfortable. Mazie Lovie’s middle grade graphic memoir The Lucky Poor tells Mazie’s own experience growing up poor, with not always ideal living situations, until her mom becomes a homeowner through Habitat for Humanity Canada.
Mazie lives with her mom and her younger brother, Jake. They’ve lived in the Bug House, with her mom’s boyfriend, then an apartment that was way too small for the three of them. Her grandparents live on a farm nearby where she spends every weekend, the most stable and consistent home in her young life. Her grandparents have a (two room) vacation cottage home too, where Mazie gets to spend a week every summer. It’s great to live with so much family close by but when it comes to physical space, it’s not always that great.
As Mazie starts getting older, she admits to herself she needs more space, her own dedicated space without Jake barging in. Jake is autistic and it’s not always easy for Mazie to be patient with him. It’s not until she joins a group with other kids with autistic siblings that she feels safe admitting this. It’s a lot of emotions for a tween to handle, dealing with being poor and not having her own room, but Mazie knows her family is part of the lucky poor, the group of people who dance around the poverty line but always have a roof over their head.
When Mazie is 13, her mom is the recipient of a house from Habitat for Humanity Canada. The family is required to complete 500 volunteer hours and maintain the upkeep of the house. The House, as it’s referred to in the book, gives Mazie a taste of the classism that’s been lying within some of her family members. They think Mazie’s mom doesn’t deserve the house. There’s people worse off than they are, they already had a place to live, why should they get a free house? The Lucky Poor does a gentle job of dealing with these heavy topics, as Mazie looks within to try to understand why anyone would feel this way. Readers will also see how hard her mom works at being the perfect homeowner and her need to continue to prove they deserve it.
The book primarily focuses on Mazie’s family but delves more into her friendships as she gets older. The House becomes a space for community; her Girl Guides group uses it as a meeting spot and it serves as a help for other members of her troop. Readers can use the story as a kickoff to think about what their living situation means to them and how it may serve as a place beyond just where their family lives.
The story told in The Lucky Poor ties into the book itself, with Mazie deciding what she wants to do with her life as it ends. Lovie’s art style is colorful and cartoonish, reminiscent of a webcomic in the best way. It may potentially attract younger readers but the narrative of Mazie’s life is more on the older middle grade side. Readers who’ve personally experienced housing insecurity may find this graphic memoir particularly emotional at times and it could evoke big emotions in readers of any class background.
There’s a lot of heart and love in The Lucky Poor, along with potential for discussion about classism and dealing with discrimination, even from the people you love. It’s recommended for readers of other graphic memoirs for middle grade readers, such as The Tryout and Chunky.
The Lucky Poor A Habitat for Humanity Story
By Mazie Lovie
Iron Circus, 2024
ISBN: 9781638991250
Publisher Age Rating: 11-13
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
