Description ★ Winner of the Newbery Award ★ Winner of the Christopher Award "A moving story that pulls readers swiftly toward a satisfying conclusion." -Kirkus Reviews "A work that showcases the author's masterful command of language, with descriptions that are spare yet utterly absorbing." -Booklist ▶ A Healing Coming-of-Age Story for Children with Wounded Hearts - Newbery Award Winner Pictures of Hollis Woods What does it feel like to be abandoned by your parents? And what is it like to have no family who will always be on your side? The pain of lacking the parents and siblings who should love you most in the world is something only those who have experienced it can truly understand. Children who are abandoned by their families, or left alone from birth without parents, are usually placed in foster care. While the term "foster family" may not be entirely familiar to us, foster care systems have existed in Korea for well over a decade now. Meeting a new family is never an easy choice, and there are countless challenges that both the child and the existing family members must overcome. Yet this is also the process of gaining the warmest community one could find in the world. Pictures of Hollis Woods is a work that harmoniously weaves together the pain and warmth that coexist in the story of a foster family. Everyone needs a place to belong. Isn't growing up, in the end, simply the process of finding the place where we belong? In that sense, Hollis Woods, the protagonist of Patricia Reilly Giff's coming-of-age novel Pictures of Hollis Woods, goes through an especially harsh season of growing pains. Named after the very place where she was abandoned as a baby, Hollis is a child who lost the most basic shelter of all—parents and family. Though orphaned Hollis suffers from the absence of family, she always runs away from any new family that takes her in. Pictures of Hollis Woods follows the journey of a girl who, wanting only to run away before someone else can abandon her first, ultimately searches for the place where she can truly belong. This novel has been praised as one of the finest portrayals of the pain and sorrow faced by an increasing number of children in modern society who grow up wounded, without a complete family. Acclaimed for its delicate portrayal—through a child's eyes—of the sense of loss caused by the absence of family, the confusion faced by children placed in foster care, and the difficulties of the adoption process, the book earned the honor of winning both the Newbery Medal and the Christopher Award, the two most prestigious awards in American children's and young adult literature. Through this outstanding coming-of-age novel, which continues to be beloved to this day, readers can once again reflect on the true meaning of family. ▶ A True Portrait of "Family" Found in Fourteen Pictures - "Sometimes we learn the truth from our own pictures." Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a mirror that could reflect children's hearts exactly as they are? Sometimes, art serves as a mirror for the hearts of children who have been hurt and wish to escape from the world, and also as a kind of therapy that helps them look back on themselves. For Hollis, the protagonist of Pictures of Hollis Woods, that mirror is precisely her drawings. Wounded by her family's abandonment, Hollis has tightly locked away her heart and refuses to connect with others—drawing is the only way she can express her feelings and hopes. The fourteen pictures Hollis draws of her time with the Regan family become the key that unlocks the story. Free-spirited and wonderfully eccentric Aunt Josie lets Hollis draw freely, sharing an artistic connection with her that draws out Hollis's honest emotions. The healing time Hollis spends with Aunt Josie helps her—someone who has only ever run from what she truly wants—begin to recognize her own worth and take active steps toward the things she hopes for. Just as a blank sheet of paper becomes a beautiful finished picture through a sketch layered with mysterious colors, Hollis gradually comes to understand, as she recalls her fourteen pictures, the love of the Regan family hidden within them. Readers will feel as though they are turning the pages of Hollis's drawings one by one...