Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature & diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn`t kept her from leading a quietly happy life.. .until now. Suddenly Willow`s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse & fully believable surrogate family is a joy & a revelation to read.