The two books I read over the summer were Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan and The Maze Runner by James Dashner. The first book, Counting By 7s takes place in Bakersfield, California, and is about twelve year old Willow Chance who enjoys gardening, diagnosing medical conditions and the number seven. The story is about her journey through life after her parents died in a tragic car accident. Prior to the car accident Willow has to see Dell Duke, a student counselor, after being accused to cheater on a test because of her perfect score.
During her counseling she meets Mai, and Quang-ha, who she lives with after the accident. Their house is a garage behind the nail salon that their mother, Pattie owns. Later on in the book Willow meets Jairo Hernandez, a taxi driver, who adventually gains custody of her along with Pattie after problems with social security and lying about where they lived. In the end everything worked out and Willow was happy again. The second book, The Maze Runner is about sixteen year old Thomas who is sent in the box to a strange place called The Glade.
He doesn’t remember anything along with all the other boys there. The only thing the boys can remember are there names, due to there memories being whipped. even though Thomas has never been to this place it feels very familiar to him. The Glade is surrounded by a maze full with creatures called Grievers and Beetle Blades, The boys say there are spy for the creators, the ones who sent them to this place. After Newt gave him a tour and explained that everyday the “Runners” go out into the maze looking for the way out, Thomas knew that what he needed to do so he was trained by Minho.
One day a girl named Teresa was sent there, Thomas had some type of connect with her. after she arrived weird things started happening, and the “end” was coming so they worked together along with the other Gladers to find the code and escape the maze due to his memories returning after the changing. There was a plethora of figurative language in these books, The first example is from Counting by 7s when Willow and Pattie and doing Dells laundry “It takes us three trips to haul the mountain down to the laundry room”.
This is hyperbole because they weren’t actually crying a mountain to the laundry room. An example from The Maze Runner is when Thomas was in the box being sent up to the glade, “With another jolt, the room jerked upward like an old lift in a mine shaft”(p. 1). This is a simile because it’s comparing the the box to a mine shaft lift using the word like. The second example is when Thomas saw the words “World In Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department” written on the walls of the maze. And off they went, those six words burning holes in his mind”(p. 214).
This is personification because words can’t actually burn holes in his mind, this could also be a hyperbole. The final piece of figurative language is describing Jeff, one of the Med-Jacks, when there were picking up Teresa when she was in her coma. “… his tall frame looking ridiculous bent in half, like a praying mantis”(p. 60). This is a simile because it’s describing Jeff to a praying mantis using the word like.
The themes of these two books are fairly similar; Counting By 7s and the Maze Runner both talk about surviving adversity and not to judge a book by its cover. For example when Dell Duke is introduced in Counting By 7s it seems like he doesn’t like children doesn’t care too much for others feelings, but later on in the book he has connections with Quang-ha watching tv and gets along with Willow. The same theme goes for Thomas in The Maze Runner when he first arrives they didn’t think in a million years that he would be a runner let alone be the reason they escape the maze.
In these books there always overcoming difficult times: Willow when her parents died, the social workers taking her away from Pattie, Grievers killing the gladers, supplies being cut off from the glade, and more. there are many similarities and differences in these novels other than the themes. First similarity is that Willow’s parents died and the boys in the Glade were taken away from their parents when they were young for the experiment, so both of the main characters don’t have parents. second is that both of the main characters don’t have many friends.
Willows only friend really mentioned is Mai. While thomas only has Chuck and a little bit of Newt until Teresa comes. One major difference in these books taking care of themselves and safety. For example Willow has people willing to do whatever for her needs and is safe, Pattie, Jario, Dell, Social Security, and there are hospitals incase they get hurt. while in the glade it’s just the boys looking out for each other and the Grievers after them. and not many ways to help someone hurt. I Would recommend both of these books because they both had good morals and were worth the read.
