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| Recommended for 12+ |
by Holly Goldberg Sloan
July 2014 | Scholastic | $14.99pb
Willow Chance is twelve-years-old and quite the genius. She has an amazing knowledge of and ability to diagnose medical conditions and an incredible talent for planting and growing things. Her parents adopted her as a baby and they love and accept her many idiosyncrasies like counting by 7s when she is stressed or refusing to go to school because no one understands her. When her parents are killed in a car accident, Willow is alone with no-one to look after her. She is taken in by a Vietnamese girl and her family (so she quickly teaches herself Vietnamese!) but it is only temporary until a 'suitable' place becomes available for her. Willow deals with her grief and the uncertainty of her new life with help from her new friends and a very quirky school counsellor who seemingly needs her help as much as she needs his. The lives of everyone are changed for the better through their connection with Willow. This is a beautiful story about different kinds of families, about the need for connection and dealing with loss and change. It will make you laugh at times and maybe shed a tear or two as well.
Highly recommended for fans of Wonder by R.J. Palacio.
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| Recommended for 9+ |
Plenty
by Amanda Braxton-Smith
Aug 2014 | Black Dog Books | $14.95pb
Maddy Frank has always lived in the same house in Fitzroy. She belongs to a close community where everyone knows everyone and she has known her best friends as long as she can remember, so she is not happy when her parents tell her that they are moving to Plenty. Maddy feels that everything she loves has been taken away from her by her parents and she punishes them accordingly with anger and silence. At her new school she is befriended by Grace, a Sudanese refugee, whose family suffered much hardship to get to Australia and who loves and is grateful to be living in Plenty. Maddy is also reunited with her grandmother, who she has never really known, and discovers that she and her grandfather were also refugees who fled from the war in Greece to come to Australia. Plenty is a heart-warming story that explores themes of acceptance, friendship, coming of age and refugees.
