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Chapter 16
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Counting by 7s, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Independent Thinking
Bureaucracy
Grief and Survival
Chosen Family
Summary
Analysis
Back in the present, right after learning about the death of her parents, someone asks Willow about her next of kin. She only knows about a grandmother in a nursing home and an estranged brother of her dad. The cops discuss having to turn Willow over to Social Services if they can’t find anyone.
This passage shows how the government fails to account for people like Willow. Rather than deal with Willow on a personal level, the cops inform her that she may have to go to Social Services, which in this novel represents a faceless bureaucracy that doesn’t treat children as individuals.
Active
Themes
