Beginning ~ with soft ice cream

We sit together outside the Fosters Freeze at a sea-green, metal picnic table.

All four of us.

We eat soft ice cream, which has been plunged into a vat of liquid chocolate (that then hardens into a crispy shell).

Counting by 7s ~ by Holly Goldberg Sloan, 2013, YA fiction

Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s.  It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life – until now.  Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world.  The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy.  This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief.  Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read.

I am most intrigued by this blurb on the cover, which is too small to read on the full cover at the top.  So here's a close-up of it.  (And here are the words, just in case.)  Also, notice in the small cover above that the red fish is swimming against the tide of blue-green fish.

"If you're lost, you might need to swim against the tide."

I came across a review that makes me really want to read this book.  Maybe you'd like to read it, too.

"In summary, it’s the story of Willow, a twelve-year-old girl who is obsessed with gardening and diagnosing medical conditions. She also takes comfort in counting by 7s. It’s clear from the outset that Willow isn’t an ordinary girl – she’s gifted, a loner and a worrier."

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays. Click here for today's Mister Linky.