Dealing with an unfortunate accident is always hard for people. It happens hundreds, maybe even thousands of times each year, and dealing with it emotionally is hard. However, other people will always be there for them and help them out. In the novel Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan, a teen has to endure the pain of their parents passing away. 

The book begins with Willow Chance, a girl who obsesses over plants, counting by 7s and medical conditions, in a car with her counselor, Dell Duke. While they are passing Willow’s house, they see policemen in the area. Willow overhears Dell's conversation with the police, and realizes that her parents have died in an accident. A few days before the accident, she is suspected of cheating on a test, and is forced into receiving counseling from Dell Duke. She makes her first friend in his office, a girl named Nguyen Thi Mai, who is with her younger brother, Quang-ha, for his counseling sessions. Willow begins to learn Vietnamese so she can communicate with Mai. She takes a taxi from home with a driver named Jairo Hernandez.\.

After the accident, Mai convinces the police that she and her family can take care of Willow for the night. Mai’s mother, Pattie, who runs a nail salon and lives in a garage behind it, agrees. The next day, Willow is moved to an emergency foster care facility. Willow sneaks away from the hospital, and calls Jairo to pick her up. The police call Dell to find Willow; with Mai’s help, he finds Willow in the library, and Mai convinces Dell to let her mother write his address as their own so Willow can stay with them. 

Pattie suggests that their family stay in the apartment until Willow finds a home. Dell agrees, and so moves in with a neighbor in the complex. Willow doesn’t go back to school but helps Quang-ha with his homework and even gets him into an honors English program, and helps out in the nail salon. The apartment complex is called “Gardens of Glenwood” but there is no garden, so Willow begins to make one herself, starting with sunflowers; Dell and the Nguyens help her. 

Jairo stops by the salon and meets Pattie. A court date is set for Willow to decide if she needs to be placed in a long-term foster facility. During the hearing, it is revealed that Pattie and Jairo are going to be the permanent guardians for Willow: Pattie has become quite wealthy and has made an offer to the bank to buy the Gardens of Glenwood complex. 

It is amazing how Willow recovers from a tremendous accident which could ruin her life. She is persistent, trying to recover and managing to do so. Also, with her friends, she develops a new type of relationship in which they tackle the world together. Counting by 7s is a phenomenal book exploring the themes of friendship and hardships in life. Appearing in everyone's lives, these ideas are hard to deal with. I feel like this book is pretty down to earth in terms of the story and is really inspirational. Seeing a child rise up from nothing can give people the idea that they can do it too, inspiring thousands of people. The book was really phenomenal in the way it was written and the prompt that the author chose. It is interesting as there are not many stories like this and I personally thought that it was amazing how they pulled it off.