resiliency | morethanabookreview

Need
Reprint edition published April 4, 2017
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
By Joelle Charbonneau

Started March 26, 2018
Finished March 29, 2018
Pages 338

Brief synopsis:
Need takes place in the middle of a small Wisconsin town. The local high school students all receive a mysterious invitation to join a new social network called NEED. It is dark web meets real, everyday life. As students are asked to do ever more character changing tasks to receive what they think the need, the small community is struck by tragedy after tragedy. An interpretation of how selfish humans can be and a warning about how fast cyber bullying can take a turn to the unchangeable.

Why this book and why now:
My oldest is in middle school. His school librarian posed a challenge to all the students to read a series of six pre-selected books. Need is one of those books. While my son had no interest initially, my friend’s daughter (and my son’s classmate) did. I challenged her to read it with me and the reward would be a special outing to a local ceramics shop. She had already read four of the six, but wasn’t too keen on finishing the challenge. Well, game on! She’s already halfway through after just a couple of days.

I wasn’t too optimistic about a young adult/juvenile fiction book about cyber bullying would keep my interest, but since I had a middle schooler and knew that social media wasn’t going away, I thought this book would be a good conversation starter with both my son and his classmates.

There is plenty of content to start those conversations. From parent/young adult relationships, suicide, taking responsibility for your actions, and the importance of trust, if you have a teenager, it should be easy to find a story line to get your teen talking.

The overall pace and feel of the book had a Maze Runner meets Hunger Games on the internet vibe. Charbonneau introduced a lot of characters one short chapter at a time. There were so many characters and they did not spend much time face to face interacting that it was difficult to remember who was who. More time on developing the social structure and the who’s who at the beginning would have made it easy to understand the nuances that Charbonneau was trying to explain with characters like Jack and Gina . Their perception of self likely is very different then how their classmates viewed them and I think that would have added to the story development.

There were a few trigger topics that I was surprised to come across in the books. Especially for Bryan who had thoughts of suicide and discussed the methods he had considered. I would want any parent to know that this topic is broached in this book so that you can have a conversation with your pre-teen or teen. Having sons, I do worry that heartbreak or not meeting expectations and the resulting emotions will lead them to consider things with irreversible consequences.

Other difficult topics include, death of a parent, death of a classmate, anaphylaxis due to food allergies, adultery, siblings with a potentially terminal disease, murder, deceit and lying.

Recommended reading for:
While this book was suggested to middle school students, I would err on the side of 8th graders and older. The book revolves around high school students and the topics discussed are geared more toward a young adult stage of life. The romantic relationships are not physical, surprisingly so considering the number of times the teens are left alone.

If you are looking for a way to have a conversation with your kid about online behavior or just looking for a way to connect, this should be a book they are interested in reading and one that keeps a parent turning the pages without too many eye rolls.

The final word:
Need does not leave me needing more, but I am optimistic that it will give me a segue into deeper conversations with my son and his peers. Based on the pace and depth of the book, I think Charbonneau absolutely meets her target audience of young teens, giving them just enough to think about without the complication of overdone scene set ups. She takes advantage of their assumptions as to how a high school social structure works and allows them to project their own experiences within the story likely making the characters more relatable to them since they are filling in some of the gaps Charbonneau allowed.

Counting by 7s written by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Counting by 7s
Holly Goldberg Sloan

Started May 18, 2015
Finished May 30, 2015
Pages: 380

Brief synopsis:
Middle school student Willow Chance was adopted as an infant. She’s an exceptionally intelligent child with a deep love and understanding of plants and medicine. Willow gets abruptly “repotted” due to a family catastrophe. Surrounded by new found friends, Willow learns how to replant herself while inspiring others along the way. Her favorite number is 7, will it prove to be lucky?

Why this book and why now:
My grandmother passed away on May 16. Feeling out of sorts and realizing I hadn’t read a book in three weeks due to ICU visits, I went to my local library. This is where Willow Chance, the main character of County by 7s and I found our first connection because “books=comfort, to me anyway.” (page 151). The librarians at our local branch are wonderful! Through the years, our family has built a great relationship with our librarians and they know just what our family is looking for when we ask for a referral. When I explained my heartache and the recent passing of my grandmother, one of my favorite librarians quickly pulled Counting by 7s, a juvenile fiction piece, off the shelf. I’m told that the fact that she shares the main character’s name had nothing to do with the referral.

Within the first few chapters, the main character is dealt a shocking loss. I almost put the book down at this point, this is not what I had in mind for distracting myself from the still fresh loss of my grandmother. However, I trusted my librarian’s referral, so I pushed through the emotion.

One of the great themes of this book is that even as Willow Chance is aching and trying to find a new normal, she was also inspiring others. She was making the lives of other people better even though her world was the worst it had ever been. The impact of this lesson is enhanced by the fact that Willow doesn’t even realize she’s having such a profound effect on those around her. I think it is that way for all of us. Just by being the person we are and dealing with adversity the way we have learned to and are wired to, leads others to have strength and courage even when we feel like we have none.

After the decision was made to take my grandmother off of the ventilator that she had been on for a week with no improvement, the hardest part was the waiting. Those five hours in the waiting room could have easily been as many days. So when I read this quote from Counting by 7s, “A second can feel like forever if what follows is heart break.” (Page 351), I knew exactly what she meant. No one wants to hurry heartbreak, so somehow we manage to make those seconds feel like minutes, the hours to feel like days. That’s probably why it’s so quite when a person is waiting for heart break. Again, young Willow said it best, “And that is why the deepest form of pain comes out as silence.”(Page 175)

There is one final quote that made me stop and meditate on the truth of it. It is, right now, one of my favorite sentiments. “I’m not brave; it’s just that all other choices have been thrown out the window.” (Page 360) I love the sense of resiliency that this quote made me feel, especially as I reflected on the events of the past couple of weeks. The idea behind this quote, that even when you feel the situation is scary and new and unpleasant, there is always bravery. There is always a chance to move past the experience by facing it head on, with a sense of power and control.

Recommended reading for:
While this book is typically recommended for 4-6 graders, this book is also an excellent read for adults. It gives us a perspective on the impact adults have on their children and the children that enter our lives in many different ways. For adults it also provides us an opportunity to reflect on the way we are impacted by children.

If your young reader is going to give this one a read, I do recommend you read it as well. There were a few concepts that might cause some anxiety to children who are on the younger end of the spectrum. For instance, a young reader may benefit from an explanation that the chances of becoming suddenly orphaned are not that great. There are lots of opportunities to discuss why certain families or people make the life choices that they do. The book also opens the door for parents to celebrate their own child’s unique interests. Willow’s uniqueness and her confidence are what help to inspire change in so many others.

The Final Word:
Counting by 7s is a book I look forward to sharing with my sons as they get older. It is also a book I look forward to rereading with them. Certainly worth reading if you are looking for great writing, a thought provoking story, and a little inspiration.

New words learned:
Onomatopoetic (page 10) -The creation of words that imitate natural sounds
Chiropterophily (page 23) – Pollination of plants by bats
Dysphagia (page 125) – medical term for not being able to swallow
Crypsis (page 153) – hiding

Selected quotes:
This one inspired me to clean out my sons’ pajama drawers, low and behold we probably had enough PJs for each kid on our block! Their grandparents seem to also like gifting “cozy” PJs.

“From my observation, the older you get, the more you like the word cozy.
That’s why most of the elderly wear pants with elastic waistbands. If they wear pants at all. This may explain why grandparents are in love with buying grandkids pajamas and bathrobes.” (Page 33)

These quotes very much resonated with me during this particular time in my life experience. I wanted to share them with you in hopes that they might provide you the same sense of not feeling quite so alone.

“I’m hiding in plain sight, which is often the best way to be concealed.” Page 153

“And that is why the deepest form of pain comes out as silence.” Page 175

“Just being there is ninety-nine percent of what matters when your world falls apart.” Page 175

“A second can feel like forever if what follows is heart break.” Page 351

“I’m not brave; it’s just that all other choices have been thrown out the window.” Page 360