Caroline Ledeboer – Counting by 7s

The book that I chose for the book-club portion of class was Counting By 7’s written by Holly Goldberg Sloan. This book is about a young girl who suffers a terrible tragedy when she is very young. She finds out early on in the book that her parents both died. The main character in this book, Willow, is literally a genius. She knows everything there is to know not only about the academics that she learns in school, but she is also fascinated with the medical world. Throughout this book there are many characters and friends that come into Willow’s life, all of which play very interesting parts. One thing that I liked about this book is that Holly Goldberg Sloan took a very deep and difficult subject, and tackled it with humor, quirkiness, just enough tragedy, and grace. She perfectly encompasses that there are kids who go through huge changes in their life as well as smaller everyday events. I think that this book could be very helpful for a student or child that may be going through the same thing as well as a lesson for other kids who may live a more “picture perfect” lifestyle and may not know what some of their peers go through. Although fortunately, I have never dealt with a death in the family, I still went through a lot growing up that most other kids don’t have many experiences with. I would assume that a lot of the things Willow goes through are the same way.  As a child, and still to this day, I always wish that my friends had a better understanding of the particular issue that my family deals with on a day to day basis, but they don’t. They won’t unless they educate themselves. I think that this book could educate young kids on not only one, but many issues that children deal with.