Counting by 7s Themes

Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Counting by 7s is the story of Willow, a 12-year-old girl who doesn’t think like anyone else around her. She has unusual interests, like a passion for medical diagnoses and an obsession with the number 7. She is confident in her opinions and has no problem declaring that the way other people think is wrong. For example, she notices that other people in school dress in different ways to signify their…

Willow, the 12-year-old protagonist of Counting by 7s, is brilliant, but instead of treating her intelligence as a good thing, her school stigmatizes her as a problem student. Things get even worse for Willow after the death of her mom and dad, when she realizes that while Child Services is supposedly looking out for her well-being, in reality, it’s a sweeping bureaucracy where the ultimate outcome is to lock Willow up in…

Counting by 7s is very interested in exploring what makes a family. Willow’s adoptive mom and dad die in a car crash early in the novel, but their love for Willow (and its absence after their death) hangs over the remainder of the novel. Willow’s new family becomes the Nguyens—Pattie, Mai, and Quang-ha—who were total strangers to Willow until Mai’s short but intense friendship with Willow motivated them to help…