Critter Club – Ellie and the Good-Luck Pig

Callie Barkley's Ellie and the Good-Luck Pig is a Critter Club story for 5 year olds about a little pink pig and a VERY lucky week.

What happens

Ellie and her friends Amy, Liz and Marion run The Critter Club, an animal shelter in Ms. Sullivan's barn. They've looked after kittens, bunnies, turtles and even frogs. But never a pig! Then Plum arrives in a crate on the back of a pickup truck and shoots straight out to race round the barn with Rufus the dog.

After that, Ellie's week goes brilliantly. She gets full marks on a spelling test she hadn't finished learning. The rain stops just as she arrives at the barn. She gets the lead in the play after all. She even finds five dollars in her raincoat pocket.

Lying in bed that night, Ellie adds it all up. It started when Plum came. Could a pig really be bringing her good luck?

She decides not to tell anyone (saying it out loud might jinx it).

It's a super gentle, cheerful read for children just starting on chapter books. The chapters are short, the sentences are simple and there's lots of chat between the four friends. Plum rolling in her mud wallow and then chasing a shrieking Ellie round the yard is a lovely bit of mess.

What happens to Ellie's luck when someone answers the newspaper advert and wants to adopt Plum? That's the question the second half of the book turns on. No spoilers here, but her friends are really kind about it.

There's a nice little idea tucked in there too, about how some of what feels like luck is really you being good at things. It's never preachy. Ellie just gets there with a bit of help.

This is the tenth Critter Club book, but it works perfectly well as a first one. The club and the girls are all introduced as you go.

What to read next

If you've got an animal lover who has a lucky sock or a lucky pencil of their own, they'll recognise Ellie straight away. And if this one goes down well, Liz and the Sand-Castle Contest takes the same four friends to the beach in a summer heatwave.