I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Counting to D by Kate Scott. This book, which is set to be released on the 11th of February, was a fun read.
The main character, Sam, is a teenage girl with Dyslexia. She is also highly gifted in math and has far above average listening comprehension skills. While the focus of the book is on how Sam navigates through her school work with her learning difference the story also looks at many other difficulties that teenagers face. There is a bit of a love story, different friendships, and sub plots on mental illness as well. What I really liked most about this book is it makes you think about people you know and the challenges they might face that you don’t even know about it. It is not preachy but helps students realize that different isn’t necessarily bad, and special ed doesn’t mean stupid.
This book is a very easy read and isn’t demonstrative of many different literary techniques so I would be unlikely to use it as a whole class read. However, I would absolutely have it on bookshelf and encourage students to read it. It would be a great book to have students read and then conduct a research project based on it. I think the interest level of the book would be 8th grade and higher due to some frank discussion of sex- though I think that was done exceedingly well!
Added bonus: If you have Amazon Prime you can borrow this book from the Kindle Owners Library FOR FREE!! Check it out!
Filed under: First Love/Crushes, Fitting In, Individual Read, Learning Disability, Mental Illness, New Kid, Realistic Fiction, Teen Boys, Teen Girls | Tagged: Kate Scott, YA Literature, Young Adult | Leave a comment »
YA Lit- The Good, The Bad, The Ugly 