Although grief itself is not hard to understand, the effects of this powerful feeling are often unpredictable. In the book Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan, the main character, Willow Chance, experiences grief after she loses her parents. In her struggles to leave the past behind, she went through many changes. There were two main transitions that had the most notable effect on her: first, when she first moved in with the Nguyens and second, when she and the Nguyens moved to the Gardens of Glenwood. When Willow first came to live with the Nguyens, she was still in shock. Right after she found out that her parents died in a car crash, her brain can barely function, and she loses the ability to talk. Her new friend, Mai Nguyen, decides that Willow couldn’t survive on her own, and decides that her family needs to take Willow in. However, Willow didn’t know that the Nguyens lived in a garage, so when she got to the Nguyens’ residence, she was caught off guard; this added to her shock even more. Had the Nguyens had proper quarters and sufficient resources to properly take care of Willow, she would probably have recovered much sooner. Although Willow’s condition improved in the days after her move to the garage, the symptoms of her grief still showed. She used to be obsessed with medicines and diseases; because of her shock, even when she made interesting medical discoveries, she didn’t speak, and, if she talked at all, she just made a short, blunt statement, like: “Get some rest.” She used to count everything by 7’s; because of her shock, she couldn’t even count anything anymore, because she thought “she didn’t count in this world anymore (as in ‘she didn’t matter to this world anymore’)”. She also became some sort of hermit: she refused to go to school or even leave the garage at all unless she was going to the Nguyen’s family-owned nail salon or the library. However, we begin to see an improvement in Willow’s spirits after she moves to the Gardens of Glenwood. At the Gardens of Glenwood (an apartment complex), Willow began enjoying life. She enjoyed life at the Gardens of Glenwood from the very beginning, in fact, when she cleaned up the apartment building with the Nguyens when they just moved in. She especially enjoyed it when she uses shards of broken glass to decorate a just-cleaned window. Then, she began finding joy in helping others, most notably Dell Duke, a sloppy but compassionate school counselor, and Quang-Ha, the Nguyen brother who at first was very behind in school (mostly because he didn’t care about it), but, with Willow’s help, got impressive homework and test scores and was moved to Honors and AP classes. However, none of these things impacted Willow as much as planting a garden (an actual one!) in the Gardens of Glenwood. Willow thought the Gardens of Glenwood needed a real garden. Despite the name, since it was so hot in the area, no creation of an actual garden had been attempted. Since tending to her garden was one of Willow’s favorite activities in her old life, she thought that planting a garden would be easy. It was not. She attempted to start the garden up by planting dozens of sunflowers in pots and then transferring them to soil later. Although the initial planting worked out, when it came time to transfer the sunflowers to the ground, Willow could not find good soil; the only dirt around was covered with all kinds of filth. Willow decided to sell the lava rocks and tarp covering everything, just for a start. Then, after that was done, they used a Rototiller to till the dirt. However, that night, a powerful wind came and blew the dirt right off the ground, like a mini Dust Bowl. Fortunately, this uncovered more filth, which was washed away by a power sprayer, and, in the end, the had finally gotten to the bottom of the pile: clean, brown soil good for use. But, Willow couldn’t relax too soon, right after she started a mini-nursery on the roof, some maintenance worker through all the plants on the roof into the garbage. But it wasn’t over yet. Henry, a friend of Willow’s and a plant dealer, donated a cherry tree, a few bamboo stalks, and other exotic plants to the garden. After everything was planted, the garden looked much better than Willow had ever imagined. Although it was a tiring ordeal, planting a garden really improved Willow’s spirits. Despite how hard the death of Willow’s parents hit her, she was ultimately able to overcome her grief. However, it was not just by herself, but also many others who worked together tirelessly to secure her future. The famous Roman philosopher and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. Puffin Books, 2013. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
Book Reviews
Inkheart, Reviewed by Abhi, 11
To be honest, when I first saw this book, my heart stopped. At the time, I didn’t really have a book to read (at least not a book for my reading level) and I was running out of what to choose from. Then when I realized there was another fantasy series on the shelf that I didn’t know about, I froze. A fantasy series, for me? I thought. In no time at all I ran up to the librarian, checked the book out, and ran all the way back home. Even after all that, I didn’t expect a ton from this book. But then when I realized what the book was trying to convey, and learned more about the characters and their complex backgrounds, my mind was blown. Inkheart is a book about books. I know that sounds weird, but you’ll understand soon enough. Basically, the whole book revolves around a young girl named Meggie. When she one day discovers a book her father, Mo, tries to keep secret, she gets very suspicious about what’s going on. Soon enough, her father gets captured by a man named Capricorn. She tries to save him, but she gets captured as well! She and her father are then taken to a creepy village, and as Meggie soon learns what’s really happening, discovers that this village, and this devil Capricorn not only want the book, but something far bigger than she could have ever imagined. Now, I didn’t love this book at first. The first half was very slow, underwhelming, and didn’t deliver much. However, once I got to the second half, my whole perspective changed. I then understood why the first half was so slow, and soon, I got addicted. Very addicted. The reason the second half (and basically the whole book if you think about it) stands out compared to other fantasy books is that it makes you think. Most fantasy books I’ve read are mostly just quick adventures with fast-paced action and some small themes, but that’s it. Even my favorite ones (like Harry Potter Books 1-6) focus mostly on the adventure and action in Harry’s adventure, rather than the relationships between the characters, and themes like friendship, sacrifice and power. But Inkheart is different. You learn about the characters’ lives, and ask questions like “Why?” or “How?” For example, Mo doesn’t immediately tell Meggie about the book (because obviously, it’s a secret), but as Meggie gets more caught up in it, he tells her the truth. And he doesn’t just say, “So I found this book and took it with me,” but talks personally about how this book has affected him. It’s amazing that this whole book revolves around one book, and how all these characters get deeply affected by it one way or another. It made me realize the power of books. The amount of knowledge, happiness, and sadness you can get from them— depending on which one you read. It changed my perspective not only about the genre of fantasy, but also about books themselves, which is saying something for a five-hundred-page book. The book is also very clever in how it handles the evolution of the main story line. During their stay at Capricorn’s village, Meg and friends don’t just escape through a window using some crazy James Bond 007 skills. It’s nothing like that. Instead, the author uses these moments to teach us more about the characters, and to reveal more about the villain’s backstory. And he doesn’t do this this through long conversations where the characters sit around and just talk. Instead, Meggie and her father know they have a specific time window before the villains crash the party, and as a reader, you can feel the clock ticking. So much stuff happens at once—all leading to one epic finale—in which there’s no crazy prison escape. There are many characters cleverly brought into the main story to solve various problems, and each of them impacts the plot in some way (even the animals!). In sum, the author conveys the story through clever storytelling techniques rather than long drawn out dialogues or discussions about the Truth and hidden secrets, like The Kane Chronicles and The Heroes of Olympus. Inkheart is one of the best books I’ve read in a while. At first glance, it might seem just like a fun, whimsical adventure, but when you look deeper into it, you’ll realize the themes and beauty it’s trying to convey, and that is why I absolutely loved it. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Scholastic, 2005. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
Girls Who Code: Spotlight on Coding Club, Reviewed by Lucinda, 13
To be completely honest, when I first picked up this book, I thought it was childish. The cover of the book was way too colourful for my liking, and the first few pages were written more for younger elementary students than middle school ones. However, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, because Spotlight on Coding Club turned out to be a fun book on friendship, maturity, dealing with anxiety and, of course, lots of coding. What I really liked about this book (and the whole series) is that it made coding cool. According to this series, coding isn’t just a pastime for young white males addicted to computer games, but a fun hobby for girls of all ages, races and personalities. For example, coding is used by the coding club to create a voting system, design a website, program a robot to play music, and make dresses glow in the dark. (Although please be warned that coding isn’t as simple as the books make it to be. I do HTML, and I still don’t know how to add pages.) Another great thing about the book is the friendships between the five girls. One is white, one is black, one is Muslim, one is Chinese and one is Latino. But these friendships aren’t perfect; the girls keep secrets from each other, and sometimes get into arguments. But that’s okay, because real friendships aren’t perfect. This book also talks about family. Erin is worried about her divorced father, who has gone on a very dangerous training mission, and has remained uncontactable since February. Throughout the book, she keeps gazing at the gray dot beside her father’s name in the web chat app, and her worry for him is apparent. Erin also gets into disagreements with her mother. She doesn’t want to get another therapist for her anxiety, and hides her panic attacks from her mother. What was really memorable about the book was Erin’s anxiety. In the blurb, they almost mentioned it as some kind of disorder: “…Erin has a secret: She has anxiety.” But in the book, I learnt that anxiety isn’t something childish to be embarrassed about. Tania, Leila’s sister, said it best: “Erin, anxiety has nothing to do with age. Adults can have anxiety, too. And it doesn’t mean they can’t handle things, or that they’re immature. It’s not necessarily something you grow out of. It’s just something you learn to manage.” For me, being an autistic girl who has meltdowns and anxiety too, reading about Erin’s panic attacks and holding onto Brave Bonnie Broomstick as a security blanket was comforting. It means I’m not the only great-coder-slash-budding-actress-who-has-anxiety out there. This book is modern, in that texting features prominently. There are group texts, short forms, and emojis. A very interesting part is when Maya has a crush on Hannah, a beautiful girl with dark skin, causing her to blush whenever she sees Hannah. Same-sex relationships between two non-white girls of different races do not appear often in middle-grade fiction. Some kids may also be surprised when Erin does not appear shocked, but however encourages Maya to ask Hannah out on a date. Hopefully it wouldn’t be the only middle-grade book that has LGBTQA+ characters. To end off, if you want a book full of friendship fun, growing up and coding with the backdrop of a talent show, Spotlight on Coding Club is definitely for you! Girls Who Code: Spotlight on Coding Club by Michelle Schusterman. Penguin, 2018. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process! Have you read this book? Or do you plan on reading it? Let us know in the comments below!
