Counting by 7s

Twelve-year-old Willow is a genius, and an outsider. She loves facts, is obsessed with medicine and disease (often wanting to tell strangers of her observations), and counts by 7’s in her head when distressed or upset. She’s miles ahead of other kids at school, and challenges the system just by being herself. Then she suddenly finds herself an orphan. This is a huge blow because she was already adopted- so it’s like she’s been orphaned twice. And she has no friends to help her through it. She gets assigned to a school counselor who is very bad at his job (and I really objected to his way of classifying problem kids until in the end Willow herself criticized it, then I felt okay about that), and through him inadvertently meets an immigrant Vietnamese/Mexican family, and slowly starts to make some connections. It’s a very odd combination of very different people. Willow herself is surprised at what her new friendships expose her to, seeing the difficulties others face in their lives, the very different way some families live, or make do to get by. She starts to find herself fitting amongst them, and making something more out of what little they have together.  I liked this one a lot. What really surprised me was how it touched me, things I could relate to that I didn’t at all forsee. Willow used to have a large, beautiful garden where she did experiments with plants and soil. After her loss, she no longer had any interest in gardening, but then started jogging with someone and started to find satisfaction (even happiness) in the physical activity. I’m right there. I no longer feel my passion for gardening, but I have a new interest in skating, so those parts of the story really hit home with me.