Review: House Arrest by K.A. Holt

House Arrest by K.A. Holt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


*spoilers at end*

Timothy has been put on house arrest for a year and has to keep a journal to prove to a judge that he has learned from his mistake. What was his mistake? Stealing a wallet and using someone’s credit card to pay for his little brother’s monthly medication. Levi isn't even a year old and he has a trach to help him breathe, but it also means constant care. Nurses, medical supplies, dr visits—they all cost a lot. And ever since Timothy’s dad left, it's been up to his mom to do it all, so Timothy wanted to help. Now he's stuck in his house for twelve months and he's angry.

Through his journal, Timothy talks to his probation officer, James, and psychologist, Mrs. B. He relates, through verse, what he and his mom deal with on a daily basis. As a twelve year old, Timothy is often left in charge because his mom has to work and they don't have a nurse that day. So Timothy does things like suction Levi’s tube, change ties, teach his brother sign language, and generally keep him happy and alive.

Timothy works so hard to grow and learn and keep himself in control, and does an amazing job, despite the odds. Despite being a twelve year old boy who feels like it is his responsibility to make sure his brother has the medical care he needs. Despite seeing because his mother give every little part of herself to keep it all together as she breaks apart at the seams. Despite his father leaving their family without a word. Despite being responsible for his brother when there is no nurse that day and his mom HAS to go to work. The world is against this kid—that’s what it feels like.

Then things start to go up. His probation officer and his psychologist are amazing and helpful and caring. His neighbors jump in and help with food and clothing and comfort. They all help carry his family when they need it. So you start to believe that it's all going to be okay and things truly are looking great.


**SPOILERS HERE **
But when Timothy makes a choice between violating his parole and keeping his baby brother alive, he makes the right choice and gets Levi to the hospital—and also lands himself in juvie. No one evaluates the situation and sees that this kid was doing right and he had grown so much in the previous almost year. No one who is capable of making a decision sees this or tries to change it. And although he does save his brother, and his brother goes to get help, all the work Timothy did to make it happen doesn't even seem to count.

I'm angry at this book. I am so incredibly upset. Which is good because books should make you feel. And three days after finishing it, I’m still seething. I liked this book more than I expected and I felt cheated —not so much for myself, but for Timothy. He was cheated. And it's not fair. Which I realize is life. Usually I am okay with endings that aren't happily-ever-after. But this one rubbed me the wrong way. I had thought things would get better, not perfect, but improved. And they did, right before it was completely ripped away from him. And that was it.
**SPOILERS END HERE!**

I still recommend this book. I will share it with my book club this year because I think we’ll have a lot to discuss. It's completely appropriate in all ways, but still deals with heavy themes: divorce, very sick relatives, asking for help, growth, ideas of what is morally right vs what is technically right in the eyes of the law, family. There is a lot to discuss.

Graphic Novel: Amulet: The Stonekeeper

Amulet: The Stonekeeper
Kazu Kibuishi
GRAPHIX, 2008
Genre: graphic novel, family, adventure, supernatural
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


Emily and her mother and brother have moved into the old family house in the middle of nowhere and discover Emily's great-grandfather's workshop.  When she picks up and puts on a amulet, she begins to hear voices--from the amulet--telling her to keep her family safe.  Unfortunately, when her mother is separated from her, Emily and her brother must search for her great-grandfather in a mysterious world.  Only he can help her figure out a way to save her mother.

I never quite know how to review a graphic novel.  Do I talk about the quality of the artwork?  Only if it is pertinent to the story's development?  I don't know.  So I'll talk about what I do know:  Characters.

Emily is a strong character, but she also goes with her gut--not always thinking things through and not exactly the most cautious.  When she finds the amulet, her brother tells her it's creepy and she shouldn't do anything with it, but she shrugs and puts it on anyway.  Even though she's sometimes rash in her decisions, she's making them with one thing in mind: bringing her mother back.

There are lots of monsters and creepy crawly creatures that Emily and her brother are fleeing from during the story, but the one is a tall, white haired, elfin boy.  He watches Emily and her family when they are in the house, and then as they chase after their mother and try to rescue her.  When she confronts him in the end, I was disappointed.  I felt like more would be revealed about him than we got.  Maybe this is something that's covered in the next book, but I don't know.

Amulet is a mysterious read filled with monsters and supernatural elements that come alive.  Emily is just a kid who wishes they could move back home and as quickly as possible.  She's just a kid who loves her family and knows that they need their mom and it's up to her to save them all.

Have you read Amulet? What do you think?  

Review: The War that Saved My Life

The War that Saved My Life
Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Read by: Jayne Entwistle
Listening Library, 2015
Genre: Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, Family,
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ada lives in London with her mother and younger brother Jamie.  She isn't allowed to leave her apartment because her mother is too ashamed for people to see Ada and her twisted foot.  Ada must sit at the window and watch her brother play.  When Jamie comes home from school and announces that all the children are going to the school the next day and the teachers are taking them out of the city because of the coming war, Ada's mother laughs and tells them they aren't going--especially not Ada.  But Ada makes sure that she and Jamie go, traveling out of London to the country where families await to take in children until the threat of war and bombs has passed.  Jamie and Ada end up Susan, who has no interest in children and doesn't have any idea what to do with them.  Grieving for a lost friend, Susan does her best for Ada and Jamie, taking Ada to a doctor for the first time and giving both her and Jamie a safe place.  For the first time, Ada realizes that she might have more to give back than she ever knew before, but what will happen when their mother comes to collect them? If she comes to collect them.

This was a wonderful performance by Jayne Entwistle that really brought all the characters to life.   Ada is strong and smart and although she has never been to school before, she can figure things out pretty quickly and read people.  She understands how the world works even though her first ten years were spent away from the rest of the world.  It doesn't take her very long to realize that her mother's claims that she was stupid and unable to attend school were wrong.  It also doesn't take her very long to realize that although Susan is being nice to them, she doesn't have to be nice to them and can change her mind at any minute.

A major part of this story is Ada's discovery of horses and riding.  Susan owns a pony, left there by her recently departed friend and Ada teaches herself how to ride the horse, making friends with neighbors who give her more help and advice in caring for her new horse.  It's this relationship that allows Ada to grow the most.

I loved that Ada, someone who is physically disabled, shows how strong and capable she is.  She isn't completely aware of this at first, but when she makes up her mind to leave and to learn to ride the horse, it comes through.  This is a point the author is making and Ada is never seen as someone is weak (even at the beginning when she isn't allowed to leave her apartment).

Susan's character is a bit difficult to figure out.  When we first meet her, she is being forced to take in Ada and Jamie.  It reminded me a bit of Bedknobs and Broomsticks when Angela Lansbury is indignant about taking in Carrie and Paul.  She does it, but doesn't like and is somewhat vocal about it. Susan is not magical, of course, but it reminded me of this.  Perhaps because it has the same setting where children were evacuated from cities during World War II but I continued to picture Susan as Angela Lansbury.

Susan seems to battle with bouts of depression that she sinks into less and less as the story progresses and her relationship with Ada and Jamie grows.  It's difficult to understand why she seems like such an outsider in her town when we first meet her--whether it's her own choice after Becky, her friend and roommate, died, or if there was more to it.  Becky was so often referred to, but we never really found out more about her.  Neighbors referred to her as the "other one" or the "nice one," making it seem like they were outsiders even before.  I assumed they were partners and their relationship was quietly looked down upon, leaving Susan to feel ostracized by her community.  It's never explained, though, and I wanted to know more about Becky.  I wanted Susan to tell Ada and Jamie stories about her--whatever their relationship to one another was--and to feel that she had come to terms with Becky's death.  That never happened, though.

This is a great book for middle school reader and adults alike.  It's about family--not the family you're born with, but the family you find along the way.  It's about becoming yourself and accepting who you are.  I highly recommend it!

Currently Reading

I'm going to finish this book soon. It's a tough read, but important. I'll write more later. But you should check it out. 

 

Book Review: The Seventh Wish

The Seventh Wish

Kate Messner
Bloomsbury USA Children's, 2016
Genre: Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Family, Drug Abuse
Source: Purchased
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

All Charlie wants is a new Irish dance dress for her upcoming competition--and a little more attention from her parents.  This year is a little rough because her sister Abby just started college and Charlie is used to having her there.  With her next door neighbor and his grandma, she starts ice fishing in hopes of selling the fish to earn money for her dress.  When she catches her first fish it's small and calls out to her to release it in exchange for a wish.  Charlie wishes, not expecting anything to happen, but when her wish does come true it's not exactly the wish she had wanted.  Willing to try again, Charlie starts making wishes to help her friends, but they aren't exactly working.  Then her sister comes home from college and things are suddenly pulled out from under Charlie when she finds out that Abby is battling a drug addiction.  Can her wishes help cure her sister and make everything the way it used to be? 

I loved this book.  Charlie is your typical middle school student.  She is focused on school and dance and wants more of her parents' attention.  When her dance competition is pushed aside for her parents' work and personal commitments, she accepts it, but she's not happy about it.  She wants to be with her friends and do a good job on her science project.  When Charlie and her parents discover that Abby is addicted to heroin, life gets harder.  Now instead of spending Sundays working on her science project and going to dance class, Charlie is at Abby's rehab for visitors' day.  Instead of worrying about dance and homework, she's worrying about if her sister will get better.

This book is a great look at what it's like to have a family struggling with an addiction.  It's not just Abby struggling; her entire family is having a hard time as well.  Charlie is embarrassed to tell her friends what's going on and she's having problems getting her homework done on the weekends.  Another dance competition is coming up and she desperately wants to go, but she won't be able to if Abby is still in rehab.  Her parents are trying to get insurance to pay for the program that Abby is in and everyone is trying to understand how this happened.

Kate Messner has taken a very serious and difficult topic and woven it into Charlie's life.  Ultimately this book isn't about drug addiction, but about a girl who really wants a new dress for dance so she can move up to the next level.  It's about Charlie, who is trying to wish all the bad stuff away for her friends and herself and realizing that it doesn't really work that way.

Abby's addiction is presented in a way that is appropriate for middle grade readers and it's very likely that kids will relate to what Charlie experiences as they see family members who struggle with different addictions.  I think it's extremely important that kids see themselves in what they read, and these are, unfortunately, experiences that some kids have.  They need those reflections in literature.  It's definitely a book I'll be sharing with my 6th graders this year as I use it for a Read Aloud in the fall.

AudioBook Review: Orbiting Jupiter

Orbiting Jupiter
Gary D. Schmidt
Narrator: Christopher Gebauer
Recorded Books, 2015
Source: purchased
Genre: realistic fiction, young adult, family
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

What It's All About

When fourteen year old Joseph comes to live with Jack and his family, he's angry and scared, and wants nothing more than to see his daughter, Jupiter.  Told through the eyes of Jack, who is in sixth grade and tries to help his foster brother adjust to life in their small town, we get to know Joseph and his story.  All he wants is to love his daughter Jupiter, but he's only fourteen, in the eighth grade, and no one will listen to him, no one will give him a safe place.  Joseph finally begins to feel at home and safe with Jack and his family, but just then his old life comes reeling back at him.

Review

I cried multiple times during this book, which is unfortunate because I only listened to it while I was walking or running and I'm sure I looked strange.  Joseph's story is tragic, which you can infer right off the bat, but when you find out everything he has been through--it will break your heart.

 Gary Schmidt does an excellent job telling Joseph's story.  Because the story is told through the eyes of twelve year old Jack, we don't get to know everything about Joseph, just what he's willing to tell Jack.  Jack has lived a pretty privileged life compared to Joseph, and although he never really seems shocked by anything he learns, it still seems very new to him.  Hanging out with Joseph leads him to being late on a regular basis, finding himself on the assistant principal's radar, and jumping into fights with other boys.  But Jack also knows what it means to be loyal to someone.  He understands that and believes that the acceptable "right thing to do" isn't always the actual right thing to do. And he follows that.

Joseph's story truly is tragic in so many ways.  He is only fourteen, in the 8th grade, and he is a father.  A father who has not been allowed to see his daughter and has lost his first love.  He is a child whose own father treated him poorly, to say the least.  He has spent time juvenile detention centers and jail.  We see how young Joseph is in his actions and his choices and his thoughts, but sometimes it's easy to forget that because he's been through so much and has experienced more in the world than Jack.  In the end, though, Jack is the one who seems to be more mature and older than twelve by many years.

I don't know if I would recommend this to my sixth grade students because there is some pretty heavy stuff that Joseph has been through.  A more mature sixth grader might be able to handle it with guidance, but I would recommend it to older students. If you're a parent looking for some reading suggestions, I would read this first and make the decision on whether your child could handle the subject matter.  There is no sex on the page, but it's obviously understood since he's a father and some of this horrible experiences he has had are alluded to and mentioned as well.

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Sunday Status

Sunday Status is a weekly (ish) post where I let you know what I'm reading and what I'm thinking about it as I go along.

~At Home~

The Forbidden Orchid

Sharon Biggs Waller

Viking, 2016

Source: I won this copy from Brittany at Please Feed the Bookworm

Genre: historical fiction, young adult

I'm not too far in, just about 70 pages or so, but I'm enjoying this book.  Set in the 1860s, Elodie's father gets paid to travel to far off places in search of rare and expensive plants and flowers.  But now he hasn't come home. Something terrible happened to him on his last trip and although they know he is okay, Elodie and her family have not heard from him.  The last thing he ever gave them was an orchid, beautiful and enticing, but also not appropriate for a young woman to set her eyes on and now Elodie is in danger of losing it--her one last connection to her father.  I don't know what happens next, but I do know (based on the Goodreads synopsis) that she will travel to China to help her father find another rare flower.  I really like Elodie so far and have already laughed out loud a few times at her wit and her fire.  She's smart and realizes that the men of her time are not as smart as she is, but she's being forced to play dumb and innocent in order to help her family and keep them together.  But at times it all just slips out.  

~At School~

Since You've Been Gone

by Morgan Matson

Simon & Schuster, 2014

Source: purchased

Genre: realistic fiction, young adult, friendship

Where have I been?  I'm absolutely loving this book.  I was going to bring it home and try to finish it this weekend, but I forgot it as school!  ARGH!  I am loving how the main character Emily is so anxious.  Okay, no that came out wrong.  I don't love that she's anxious--I don't wish that on a person.  What I love is that I can completely and totally connect to her anxiety.  Emily barely speaks to others because she's so shy, and the thoughts that run through her head during a conversation (which are painful most of the time) could have been my inner monologue as a high schooler and college student.  And even now, when I'm 34.  I hope my conversations aren't as painful as hers, but the inner monologue of "What in the world did I just say?" is dead on.  

I'm loving this book.  Can't wait to finish it this week!

Goodreads synopsis

~Listening To~

Orbiting Jupiter
Gary D. Schmidt
Narrator: Christopher Gebauer
Recorded Books, 2015
Source: purchased
Genre: realistic fiction, young adult, family

Audiobooks usually take me a bit longer to get through because I save them for when I walk outside, but I've been doing a lot of walking as of late due to the lovely weather.  Thank goodness because I haven't had to wait too long to find out what's going on with Jack and Joseph.  Jack's family has decided to foster an 8th grade boy named Joseph, and for sixth grader Jack, this is a big change for him.  He lives on an organic farm and has always been an only child.  He's a good kid.  No one would say that for Joseph, who was kicked out of his first home for trying to kill a teacher after he took some drugs, got in many fights in his detention center, and is the father of a little girl named Jupiter.  And the way most adults treat Joseph is that he's already so bad that he doesn't deserve their time.  MOST adults.  There are some absolutely wonderful adults that come into Joseph's life when he moves with Jack's family, most importantly Jack's parents.

I only have an hour left of this audio and it's breaking my heart.  I have so many thoughts and feelings about it already and it's only building more and more.  I'll have to save more of my thoughts and feelings for when I write a review.  Absolutely heartbreaking.

Goodreads synopsis

One Came Home by Amy Timberlake

This novel starts out with a funeral and the untimely death of the narrator’s sister.  Georgie Burkhardt doesn’t believe that her sister is dead, though, and she’s determined to find out the truth—with or without help.  Unluckily, help comes in the form of Billy McCabe, her sister’s former beau.  Set in 1871 in the town of Placid, Wisconsin during a great pigeon nesting that drives through Georgie’s town, sending the town into chaos.  Just like those wild pigeons are a force as they descend on Placid and the surrounding area, Georgie pushes along this story so that you’re there with her, determined to find her sister Agatha. 

Georgie reveals the past to us, the reason for Agatha’s departure, her relationships, and her personality through a series of flashbacks that help us understand, even before Georgie does, how her sister most likely died.  Even so, when Georgie finally does come around, I was suddenly on the other side.  No, she might still be there.  Georgie lost hope, but I kept it for her.  I thought it beautiful how Amy Timberlake made this happen.  It’s almost as if Georgie’s convincing has worked, but not for herself. 

Georgie’s quest to find the truth allows her to learn much about her sister, feeling again close to her, as well as angry at her for putting them all in this situation.  Moreover, she’s able to learn about herself, questioning what she has always known as the truth, and learning actual truths that she never wanted to know. 

I found myself pulled into this story from the get go.  Georgie is an easy character to follow.  She doesn’t demand that you burrow in and accept what she’s saying.  She’s likable, even though she does some unlikeable things.  My only real issue with this book is that I had a hard time really believing that Georgie belonged in this time period.  I can’t pinpoint what caused this feeling, but Georgie seemed like a more modern girl and belonged in more modern times.  It wasn’t due to her abilities, which were not skills that would have been encouraged in a young girl in the late 1800s, but in her voice.  Something about the way she spoke was too modern.  It may have even been too sheltered for a girl living in this growing town, learning to shoot, and traipsing through the woods.  I almost felt like she should have been more mature than she was due to this time period.  Needless to say, it took me out of the space every now and then.

This is a great read and I recommend it for readers who enjoy an adventure.  Georgie definitely has her fair share of adventure in this quest for the truth.  If you really like historical fiction, this may or may not be for you, depending on if you can believe that she really belongs in this time period.

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town

by Kimberly Willis Holt

Scholastic

1999

I really had no expectations for When Zachary Beaver Came to Town by Kimberly Willis Holt.  I picked it up because a few of my students had read it this past year.  Going in, I didn’t remember at all what it was about when I reached it on my list the other day.  I didn’t even bother reading the back.  That being said, I still felt a little disappointed.

We meet Toby hanging out with his best friend Cal during the summer in a small town in Texas.  They are lining up to see the most interesting thing to happen in their town in years.  A trailer has pulled up and a man is charging two dollars to see the world’s largest boy.  Toby and Cal eventually end up developing an odd and somewhat strained friendship with “the world’s largest boy” Zachary Beaver, but it’s just one more thing for Toby to worry about this summer.

This small Texas town seemed filled with people.  There are so many characters it become confusing.  We of course have Toby and his best friend Cal, and also Toby’s father, important characters who could have used a bit more filling out.  Zachary Beaver is also an important character whose appearance seems to be a catalyst for a lot of Toby’s realizations.  Then we have the following minor characters: Miss Myrtie Mae is the town librarian and cares for her senile brother; Ferris owns the bowling alley/restaurant; Wylie Womack doesn’t speak anymore and runs the snow cone place; Katy is Cal’s sister and her role becomes more important after she obtains her drivers license; Toby’s crush Scarlett is in a relationship with Juan, and she has a bratty little sister who annoys Toby.  Plus, we have the sheriff, the reverend, Cal’s parents, and his brother Billy.  So many characters!  This story also has two important non present characters—Toby’s mother and Cal’s brother.  Toby’s mom is off in Nashville this summer pursuing her dream of becoming a country music star, and Cal’s brother Wayne is fighting in Vietnam.  No one really gets to be more than a shell of a character and the actions of characters seem to come out of nowhere since we never really get to know them.

For example, Toby learns that his mom isn’t coming back home after she loses a music contest—in fact, she’s not coming home anytime soon.  Toby seems like a smart kid, but he doesn’t get this until half way through the book.  It’s obvious to the other characters in the book that she isn’t coming back, and they allow Toby to lie to them about why his mom isn’t home yet.  They know the truth but let him lie—even his father.  I can understand this as Toby attempts to deal with his parents splitting up.  What I don’t understand is when an even bigger tragedy, a death, affects Cal, why Toby stops being Toby.  He doesn’t speak to Cal, he hides from him, and refuses to go to any of the services, even after his father has lectured him and warned him.  I didn’t expect this from Toby.  It didn’t make sense for his character to act like this. 

We also had Zachary Beaver, a key character in the book who is extremely negative and closed off, lying about the places he has been, creating up stories about his travels.  He is secretive and sarcastic.   It’s easy to understand why he acts this way based on how his life has been so far.  What isn’t easy to understand is the baptism Toby and Cal give him at the end of the book.  They have decided that this is what Zachary wants, even though he has never said it and refuses to talk about it when Cal brings it up.  How exactly did they come to this conclusion?  I’m not sure.  When the boys plan it and “surprise” him with one, he goes—rather easily.  Where did that come from?  It’s explained that because it’s private and down at the lake that he’s okay with it now—but it still doesn’t sit right with me. 

A lot of this novel just didn’t make sense to me.  I felt like characters were never really fleshed out enough to understand their decisions or actions.  It seemed like it was more of a matter of convenience, and all these contrived events lead up to a blasé ending in which Zachary leaves unceremoniously, Toby goes to visit his mom, and all the issues of the summer have been nicely cleaned up and resolved.  

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Dutton Books

2012

The Fault in Our Stars is a story about many things.  It’s about love and loss, yes, but it’s also about so much more.  Hazel and Augustus are just teenagers, yet already deciding who they are and what mark they will leave on the world.  Will it be a heroic and inspiring legacy they leave in which the universe will remember them?  Or will it be a hurtful and selfish stain thrown on humanity that keeps their memory alive?  Or when they leave this world, will the memories of them also fade?

Hazel has known she will die for years now.  Diagnosed with terminal cancer, she has been given a gift in the form of a drug trial that has managed to keep her tumors from growing.  She goes through her teenage life carting around an oxygen tank, watching America’s Next Top Model, and devouring her favorite novel An Imperial Affliction over and over again.  When she meets Augustus, a cancer survivor who lost his leg as a side effect, her life changes. 

Although this book is full of death and Hazel’s focus on death could be incredibly depressing, it doesn’t feel like your typical cancer book.  Hazel is not a character out of a Lurlene McDaniel book, positive all the time, with inspiring goals and an I-can-do-this attitude.  She is bleak about her life and honest about her fears of hurting everyone around her.  She tries to minimize the inevitable pain by making as few connections as possible.  This isn’t done in a loving and selfless way.  Instead this fear is about herself, about what type of person that makes her if she allows others to be hurt by her death.  She is a whiny teenager, arguing with her parents, annoyed by their hovering, and desperately trying to keep herself out of a relationship with Augustus.  Small spoiler:  they get together.

All the characters in this novel are lovely.  They are real.  Hazel, Augustus, and their friend Isaac talk openly and honestly about the people in their lives and how much it truly sucks to have cancer.  I appreciated this.  You see their flaws, but love them all the same.  And your heart breaks along with theirs. 

The most intriguing thing about An Imperial Affliction, the book with which Hazel and Augustus are obsessed is the way it ends, without an ending at all really—the main character just stops midsentence.  Hazel is haunted by this, needing to know, not what happened to Anna, the main character (it’s obvious that this character has died) but what happens to everyone else.  Are they okay?  Do they move on?  Are they happy?  This all reflects back on Hazel’s own fear of hurting her family and friends by dying and leaving them behind.  She refers to herself as a grenade that will tear everyone near her apart, and she needs the assurance of An Imperial Affliction’s author to give her that.

There is so much I want to say about this book.  The language is so beautiful, and although in most circumstances I would roll my eyes at the words these teenagers use, it’s believable here.  It’s obvious that Hazel is very smart and she devours books, so it makes sense that she would speak with such verbosity and confidence.  There were moments when I had to pause and go back and read a line or paragraph because it was so beautifully written that it deserved another look. 

I was taken by this book and angry at it as well.  What I assumed when I started reading the novel did not happen and as soon I realized what would happen in this book, I was so incredibly angry.  The characters are written so well and we become so attached to them and we think we are prepared for the worst.  In fact, the entire book has been set up to prepare us, to ease us into the inevitable.  Instead we’re blindsided with reality and it crushes.  I’m not sure if I feel tricked or not.  I’m not sure if I really like this novel for doing this, for eliciting such emotion, or if I feel as if John Green and I had an agreement and then he broke it.  I guess I feel a little bit like Hazel and Augustus when they finish reading An Imperial Affliction.  Cheated.

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan will pull you into the world of Willow Chance.  Willow has just started middle school, been accused of cheating, started seeing a counselor, and may have just made a friend.  With a love for botany, studying diseases, and the number 7, Willow knows she is different from her peers, but it doesn’t matter since she has loving and caring parents—both of whom die in a car accident, leaving Willow alone.  In come a small army of people to help Willow, people no one would imagine to have helped her before—some of whom she didn’t even know until now.  Her counselor, a Vietnamese family, and a taxi driver, band together for Willow’s sake as she navigates her new life.  What Willow doesn’t know is how much she can help them.

                Just as the characters in Willow’s life are drawn to this strange little girl, the reader is also compelled to care for her.  We get to see Willow as herself before her parents die, somewhat lost in early adolescence, but happy and content with the things she loves.  Even here, when she’s happy, we’re cringing along with her mother when Willow announces that she’ll wear her tan gardening outfit and red hat on the first day at her new middle school.  We already want Willow to do well at her school and we know that it will be impossible for her to fit in. Our heart breaks with hers as she tells us that the old her might have taken delight in the instances of 7, but she doesn’t do that anymore….

                I was put off by the character of her counselor, Dell Duke.  He is written to be an unlikable character. He categorizes his students into different degrees of the strange, never thinks anything through, is easily pushed around by a high school student, and is selfish.  He seems more childish than Willow; however he does have redeemable qualities and he tries, but I still could not get over my dislike of him—even by the end of the book. 

Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Willow Chance is a wonderfully written character.  She has immersed us in rich characters who are believable with real flows, yet for the most part we love them all.  Make sure you keep Kleenex nearby, however, as this was tear jerker thought the entire book.