I recently finished the realistic fiction called Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling.
Aven Green loves to tell stories about how she lost her arms. But the truth is that she was born without arms. All her friends at school are used to seeing Aven without arms. When her dad gets a job at a theme park, she has to move away from the home she has always lived in. Aven does not like her new home but she meets Conner, who has Tourette Syndrome and Zion. She starts to like her new home but the manager of Stagecoach Pass hasn’t been seen very much and Aven starts to think that he was murdered. Then things start to get spooky. Aven finds an old shed which has a sign that says DO NOT ENTER! She told Conner and Zion and together they explored the shed. Aven finds a picture of herself, but with arms and she finds a turquoise necklace on top of a cross that says A,V,N. Conner thinks that it says AVEN but she isn’t so sure. She asks Josephine if she knows anything about the cross. She says that the cross actually says Aven and that she was the real Aven’s mom. She died a few weeks after Aven was born. Aven also found out that Josephine is her grandmother and the owner of Stagecoach Pass. After that, Aven is invited to join a band for the Stagecoach Pass art show. Aven, Conner, and Zion go to the top of the hill and watch the sunset. Aven says she can see two friends standing with her and supporting her. She is ready for anything that comes her way, as long as she is with her two new friends.
Aven is a little shy at first but she gets the power to be less embarrassed little by little throughout the story. At the end of the story, Aven says that she is ready for anything that comes her way. That means she is encouraged and has the power to try anything.
I empathize with Aven because I know what it feels like to be embarrassed and lonely. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a story filled with humor and a little bit of sadness.
end