Heartbeat
by Sharon Creech
HEARTBEAT by Sharon Creech
Category: Contemporary
Age Recommendation: Grades 6+
Release Date: 9/27/05
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Reviewed by: Taylor Rector
Rating: 5 Stars
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. HEARBEAT is a simple, fun, fast read.
