Counting by Sevens by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Counting by sevens is a book by Holly Goldberg Sloan. It is about a kid named Willow Chance who is coping with the death of her parents for most of the book. Before that, she meets a school counselor named Dell Duke. She also meets two siblings named Thi Mai and Quang-ha.
I believe this book is for people who want interesting fiction, but are tired of confusing fantasy and sci-fi story elements. Counting by sevens doesn’t hold back. It has shocking events happen multiple times in the story. For me, the book is 4 out of 5 stars. The book is amazing, but not perfect. The book has a great story, but some things are a little confusing. For example, Dell Duke left a counseling session with Mai and Quang-ha to “get a soda” but he actually brought his cat to the counseling building. The book is good for most readers. To summarize with a quote from the book, “What you expect almost never happens, what you don’t expect is what happens.”
- MAX
In our novel, Counting By 7s, a girl named Willow comes back into the house from gardening. She’s our main character and she's a genius. She knows American English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Because of her intellect, you may think she’s just a normal old girl who lives a normal old life. You’d be very, very wrong. She comes in to find she now has to pick an outfit for her first day of the new school year. Simple task. So she picks her outfit and waits for school to start. She enjoys gardening, so she does that in her newfound waiting time. She tends to the plants and makes sure the soil is at the right PH level. Eventually , school comes. She finds teens in middle school like the color black and hair styles/clothing matter a lot. After a while, testing comes, and she’s accused of cheating because she didn’t get one question wrong. Not one. She’s sent to Dell Duke, the school counselor. Little did she know, this would be the beginning of something much, much bigger.
As readers, we all have opinions on our favorite novels, our not so favorite documentaries, our Netflix and chill, etc. My opinion (we all have our own) on Counting By 7s is that it’s a book that pulls you in. It may not look exactly amazing at first glance, but, like a surprisingly large amount of people say, never judge a book by its cover. This book makes you feel like you’re actually there, experiencing the sights, sounds, smells, events, etc. It moves along at a fair pace so that you can read and not have to go back 60 pages saying “What are they talking about? What’s a rototiller? I don’t remember that happening.” I also enjoyed how the author rewinded the story in a way so that I could understand the events that led to what was happening in the present tense. Willow’s statement, “I need to rewind. I want to go back. Will anyone go with me?” implies that we’re going backwards in the story. It gets slowly more easy to understand as you get closer to the event that the author started with. All in all, it’s a great book that sucked me in. 15 out of 5
- Bradley
In the book Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan, the main character Willow Chance is a twelve year old girl. She has lost her parents, and now she is telling the audience about her life before and after the tragic incident .She now has a counselor which later on becomes a very important person in her life. She has friends (kind of family-like )that help her get through her times when she is in despair.
I liked this book because it was very intriguing and it always had something more to give . It felt like a diary of someone .The book was not that easy ,it had some higher level word usage to me. The book was a little confusing at first because I didn't know who the characters were in the first chapter. It was also kind of confusing because I couldn't understand who the narrator was. This book was nowhere too predictable ,since Willow is such a free minded and genius person you never knew what she was going to say. I felt like this book is very believable because it gave so much emotion.It gave off the perspective of Willow and how she felt and how her life changed and One of the quotes I like from the book was “A world lost, a world unsuspected, beckons to new places ,and no witness(lost) is white as the memory of whiteness”. I like this quote because it shows that Holly Goldberg Sloan, uses intelligent and a meaningful choice of prose. I would give this a ⅘ stars because it has twists and turns. I would recommend this book to anyone because it has action, emotion ,and drama.
- AMAYAH
Counting by Sevens by Holly Goldberg Sloan is a book about someone whose test scores were 100. She got in trouble for cheating when she was just gifted and she was sent to the school counselor due to it. During a “therapy” session, her parents died in a car crash and she couldn't tell them about the sessions she was doing. She also met a couple of friends in one of the sessions.
The book doesn't have too many difficult words in it. The main character may be a bit difficult to understand but it’s a good book to read. My favorite part was when Dell Duke was kicked out of his house.I’d say it’s not too predictable but it is believable. I’d rate it a ⅗ stars . “We live in Dell Duke’s apartment. He has to knock in order to get in”: I chose this because it shows that Dell Duke was kicked out of his own house.