Pictures of Hollis Woods

For my Realistic Fiction choice, I read Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. This is the story of a twelve year old girl struggling through the foster care system. Abandoned as a infant, Hollis Woods has only ever been able to long for a permanent family of her own. She often feels alone in this world, running from foster homes until she is taken to another one. Hollis does have an amazing gift of drawing though. This gift made me think of the quote from Wonder, "the universe takes care of all its birds." Even though Hollis was dealt this incredibly difficult hand, the universe blessed her with the ability to communicate with people through her art. Hollis is able to get work through her problems with her drawings because she sees the world differently when she draws things. This is how she returned to the foster family she loved so much. She had ran away because she thought she was driving a wedge between the father and son, but after working through her artwork from that summer, she realized that it wasn't true. She thought "...sometimes what you see is so deep in your head you're not even sure of what you're seeing. But when it's down there on paper, and you look at it, really look, you'll see the way things are... That's the world, isn't it? You have to keep looking to find the truth." Hollis was able to find that truth and return to her true family.






http://wowlit.org/blog/2011/06/20/responding-to-literature-as-a-community-transactions-with-pictures-of-hollis-wood/