I’m not going to lie….I picked this book up because I liked the cover. And I’m so glad I did. It hit me in all the feels and brought a tear or two to my eye. I am not normally a crier so that is saying a lot.
Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan, just might be one of our favorite books of the year. Willow Chance is a genius twelve-year-old genius obsessed with plants and medical conditions. Her adoptive parents let her grow a jungle in their backyard and facilitate her quirky personality. Willow doesn’t quite fit in at school and is sent to meet with the school counselor after she is accused of cheating on a standardized test because she finished it in 17 minutes and got every question right.
Dell Duke, the counselor, is terrible at his job. He is unorganized and doesn’t understand the kids in his care. He puts them in categories like, oddball, weird, and lone wolf. When he meets Willow, he creates the category GENIUS and wonders how he can use her smarts to his advantage.
During her counseling session Willow meets Mai Nguyen and her brother Quang-ha. Mai is tough and street-smart and is taken by Willow especially when she teaches herself Vietnamese so she and Mai can talk without Dell understanding them. When she takes a cab to get to her counseling session early to talk to Mai, Willow meets Jario who is driving the cab. Taking Willows advice, Jario starts to think about going back to school.
Willow’s life is turned upside down when her parents are tragically killed in a car accident. Mai’s mother, Pattie, takes Willow in for a night to prevent her from going into a group home and the whole family goes through great lengths to keep Willow out of foster care. Pattie owns a nail also and lives in the garage behind it, but realizes that she needs a better housing situation if she is going to keep Willow out of foster care. She hatches a plan to move her family into Dell’s apartment while he rents a room down the hall.
Willows life is changed by the death of her parents and she counts on Dell, Pattie, Mai, Quang-ha, and Jario to show her that family comes in different forms. But what is unexpected is how Willow changes the lives of everyone else.
This book is written form the first person view of Willow but switches to third person for the other characters. This writing style takes a few chapters to get used to but overall it works. While this book is a middle-grade book, I think the subject matter could appeal to kids through high school.
What books have you picked up because of the cover and ended up enjoying?
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