Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Counting by 7s describes the life of 12-year-old Willow Chance after an important event disrupts her world. Orphaned at birth, Willow is adopted at a young age by Jimmy and Roberta Chance. Willow is very different from other children her age: she prefers to keep to herself and focus on one thing for a long time. For example, she loves analyzing people’s medical symptoms, scrutinizing plants in her backyard, or counting by sevens to large numbers.

The first chapter begins with an ominous afternoon. Willow attempts to text her parents that she will be home late, but neither responds. When her counselor brings her home later in the evening, she finds police cars waiting in front of her house. The next thing she learns is that both of her parents have died in a car accident earlier in the day. The first chapter concludes with this revelation, and the following one travels back in time two months. I find it interesting the way that the author writes the conflict of the story before the exposition. Because the author immediately caught my attention with such a major conflict, I was willing to continue reading about Willow’s life after — and before — this traumatic event.

The novel explores how difficult life can be for someone who does not seem to fit into the environment around them. Since Willow is interested in things that most children her age are not yet aware of, she barely has any friends at school. Even worse, her high intelligence is commonly misunderstood by others. For example, on a statewide common assessment, Willow scores a perfect score using only one-third of the given time. Not only does this fail to impress anyone, but Willow’s teacher also accuses her of cheating and sends her to the principal. Earlier in elementary school, when the teacher tells the students to lie on the floor and take a nap, Willow raises concern about the potentially harmful effects of bacteria on the floor. This makes other students laugh at her. They do not understand her point and think she is talking nonsense. From a reader’s perspective, I felt bad about the treatment Willow received. I know she has the potential to prove herself, but due to her weakness in communication and the lack of compassion others showed her, few people understood her.

The author also stresses the importance of belonging, whether to a family or a group of people. Right after the accident, the law requires someone to take guardianship of her until a permanent place could be found; otherwise, she would be sent to childcare centers. Knowing that Willow has barely any friends or relatives, Mai Nguyen, Willow’s friend, pleads with her mother to take guardianship of Willow. Thankfully, her mother, Pattie, feels sorry for Willow and agrees.

In the Nguyen family, Mai and Pattie are very nice and sympathetic towards Willow; the father of the family has long abandoned them, and the son, Quang-ha, does not seem happy about the appearance of a new person in the house. However, a greater issue appears: Pattie cannot put down her address on Willow’s official paperwork because she does not own a house. Her family lives illegally in a cramped garage.

After lots of consideration and communication, the Nguyen family and Willow move into Dell Duke’s apartment. Dell is Willow’s school counselor, and he is one of the only people who admire Willow’s intelligence. However, Dell lives a very disorganized life, and though he feels embarrassed to have so many people coming to his apartment, he knows this is the best option for Willow. For the following months, the five live together and assist in each others’ lives until Willow’s court hearing. By the end of the book, the five became a family. I simply could not imagine how dramatically different Willow’s life would have been had she been put into a childcare center where, according to Willow, all the children come from families where the parents never cared about them.

In the end, the most important message that the author shows is Willow’s transformation. Before everything changes, she is an obstinate girl who does everything in her life just for herself; after the accident, she learns how important it is to communicate and work with others. I am glad to see Willow’s growth. My favorite sentence from this book appears at the end, where Willow says that whenever she needs time to calm down in the future, she no longer counts by sevens, but she counts to seven.