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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSTwelve-year-old Willow Chance is a gifted, adopted girl living in Bakersfield, California, with a passion for plants, medical conditions, and the number 7. She has always been socially isolated, and starting seventh grade at a new middle school only deepens that loneliness. When she aces a statewide standardized test in under eighteen minutes, her principal suspects cheating and sends her to a district school counselor named Dell Duke, an unambitious and disorganized man who has never met anyone quite like her. While waiting outside Dell's shabby trailer office, Willow meets a sharp, bold fourteen-year-old named Mai Nguyen and her sullen older brother Quang-ha, and for the first time in years she feels the pull of real friendship. Then, without warning, the day she looks forward to as a turning point in her life becomes the worst day of it.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Counting by 7s
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Counting by 7s. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book is a girl named after a cold-climate tree by her adoptive parents?
✓ Answer
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Willow's adoptive parents drove a long way to bring her home and named her after a tree. The willow tree is part of her identity from the very start, and the adoption is a key piece of who she is.
- First half
In what book does a girl come home from school to find police officers waiting in her driveway?
✓ Answer
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Willow returns from an afternoon at the ice cream stand with her new friends to find a patrol car in front of her house. The officers are waiting to tell her that her parents were killed in a car accident.
- First half
In what book does a salon owner stock more than a hundred shades of nail polish?
✓ Answer
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Pattie owns Happy Polish Nails and stocks more than a hundred polish colors, even though she wishes everyone would just choose red, which she considers lucky. She tracks her inventory closely to spot any theft.
- Second half
In what book does a girl pick up an acorn that survives being run over by a car?
✓ Answer
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Mai stomps on an acorn in frustration after a hard day, and when she kicks it into the street a car rolls over it without crushing it. She decides the nut is a survivor and slips it somewhere Willow will find it as a secret good luck charm. The acorn shows up again and again throughout the rest of the book.
- Second half
In what book are sunflowers grown in tin cans, plastic tubs, and old milk cartons?
✓ Answer
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Willow and Dell dig through the recycling Dumpster in the carport to find planters for the seeds. They wash twenty-three containers in the laundry room, including former sour cream tubs and a plastic gelato carton. Dell ruins a kitchen knife punching drainage holes.
- Near the end
In what book do residents power-spray pink paint off an apartment building all night long?
✓ Answer
Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
After a Santa Ana wind blows tilled dirt onto the building, they rent a power sprayer to clean it. The high-pressure water removes the dirt, then the awful pink paint, then even the lumpy stucco. They end up working past three in the morning to do the entire building.
