I am currently reading Counting by 7’s a 378-page realistic fiction book by Holly Goldberg Sloan. Counting by 7’s was a New York Times Bestseller. She has written other books such as Short, Just Call My Name, I’ll be There and many others. I picked this book because it looked very interesting to me. I read the back of the book and it sounded a little like the book Out of My Mind. I also enjoyed that book so, I thought I would enjoy this one. The audience that would like this book would mostly be teens to adults. This book shows that anyone can overcome sorrow or pain because there is happiness all over the world. I think that this book would be hard for young readers to understand.

The book Counting by 7’s, is about a twelve year old girl named Willow Chance. She loves nature and medical conditions and feels comfortable counting by 7’s. Both of her parents died in a car crash. Willow is adopted and has no other family to take care for her. So her new friend Mai (that she just met this year) told the police that Willow could come live with her family. Willow is very depressed because of the loss of her parents and she realizes that she has to start a totally new life. Willow realizes that she must move on and push through this difficult time.

I was surprised that Mai just took in Willow to live with her. They met each other in the beginning of the school year. They only knew each other for a little while and now they are living with each other as a family. It also surprised me when Mai’s mom just went with it. Page 109. Her mother just let a girl that she never met come live with them. The mom just took her in like she was an old friend. Page 115. I liked that the author wrote the book in two different perspectives. Each chapter they would switch to first person (someone telling her story) to third person (like a camera recording the events that are going on). I never read a book that did this and I really like it. At first it was hard to follow but after reading a couple of chapters it started to get easier to understand. This reminded me of the movie Earth to Echo. It is sort of like the perspective of Counting by 7’s.

I was interested in this passage, when Willow tells Mai that she is her best friend. “Since I just started at a new school, your right now sort of my only friend, so that makes the distinction perhaps not much of a difference.” page 98. I liked this passage because it shows that Willow has a friend. Willow knew that she hardly has any friends but is very thankful for the friend she has. This quote reminds me of my first day of school in fourth grade. I remember that I did not have any friends but when I made my first one I was very happy. Just like Willow she was happy to call Mai her first friend. I did not finish Counting by 7’s and I am very close to finishing, so far it is a 10 out of 10.

Sincerely,

Olivia Parcells