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Book Review of Heartbeat

Heartbeat
Heartbeat
Author: Sharon Creech
Genre: Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Paperback
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Reviewed by Taylor Rector for TeensReadToo.com

In this poetic novel by acclaimed author Sharon Creech, Annie, a twelve-year-old girl, is trying to find out who she is. A lot happens in this short one-hundred-and-eighty-page book.

Annie's mother is pregnant, her grandfather is beginning to forget things, and her friend Max is extremely moody. Annie loves to run, and throughout the book there are "thump, thump, thump" lines where she can hear her heart beat in rhythm with her feet, which are running hard. Hence the title of the book.

In Annie's art class, the students are asked to take an apple and draw a picture of it for one hundred days. At the end of the project the students are to turn in one hundred drawings. There are poems in the book devoted to the one apple.

I love Ms. Creech's writing and admire her poetic style. The characters come alive as if you knew each one of them personally. I love reading books like that; they seem so real. HEARTBEAT is a simple, fun, fast read.