Book Review: The Ashwater Experiment

My daughter is an avid reader. One of her favorite books, which she has been reading for years, is The Ashwater Experiment by Amy Goldman Koss. Upon her insistence, I decided to read the book and post a review of it for this month.

Hillary Siegal leads a nomadic lifestyle with her unconventional parents. They travel from place to place, selling crafts at the local craft shows. They live in their camper or whatever place they can find, never settling down or staying in one place for any amount of time. Hillary's grandparents describe her and her parent's life as a "circus train."

Hillary is surprised when her parents decide to housesit for 9 months in a town called Ashwater, California. They arrive there as school is about to start. Hillary realizes she will spend her entire seventh grade in one school.

Hillary is unsure that she can last in one place for so long. To help her through this adjustment, she starts questioning everything about life. Is she the only real person in the whole world? Is everything around her just there to test her reactions? Are eyes all around her? She decides this could be true and invents the "Watchers," those who monitor her every move. She calls this "The Ashwater Experiment."

Because she has no friends when she moves to Ashwater, she puts her feelings, thoughts and questions in a journal, each entry addressed to the "watchers," who she calls "you."

Hillary is sure she won't like being rooted in one place for so long. When she starts school, she realizes that each school has a class clown, a popular girl, etc. Hillary is sure she will not fit in.

When her math teacher realizes that Hillary is an excellent math student (she does her parents' accounting for their crafts), she is asked to tutor the popular girl, Serena, and the jock, Brian.

Serena likes her and envies her lifestyle of moving from place to place, even though she is rich and lives like a queen. Hillary and Serena soon become friends. However, one of Serena's friends doesn't like Hillary and makes her miserable whenever she can.

Hillary also becomes friends with the class loner, Cass, and they find out that they have similar interests, including gardening.

Just as Hillary and the plants start to put down roots, the family they are housesitting for return from their vacation early. Can Hillary handle being uprooted again?

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