Alysha

**__So. Be. It-By: Sarah Weeks__**

"It's not about the past. It's about where you are now." - Bernadette

"Sometime people lie because the truth is too hard to admit." -Alice

"Life isn't fair sometimes, is it?" -Ruby


 * **"A quick and satisfying tale of love, determination, and the kindness of strangers."**
 * - Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books **

** - VOYA (starred review) **
 * **"Refreshing, off beat characters. As the riddle of Heidi's life slowly unfolds, readers will be genuinely touched and surprised."**


 * **"A remarkable novel. [Heidi's] cross-country journey is brave and daring and yields surprising results."**
 * - New York Times Book Review **



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** My first passage, "It's not about the past. It's about where you are now," was said by Bernadette. It is important significant because this is whats she says when Heidi is thinking that she wants to travel across country to find the truths of her past. Heidi says she wants to know her past like everyone else. She wants to know where she came from, where her mom grew up, and who her father and grandmother are. Bernadette is trying to keep her from going and she tries telling her that whether she goes or not, it's not going to change her life. She won't gain anything from knowing where her mother grew up. Bernie tells her that the past doesn't matter anymore, it's about what she is now, and that's with Bernie and her mother. **

**My second passage, "Sometimes people lie because the truth is too hard to admit," was said by Alice. Alice is a girl Heidi meets on the bus trip to Liberty. Heidi is alone, so she tries to meet women on the bus to talk to on her way there. Alice and Heidi start talking about lying and Alice tells Heidi some of the reasons people lie. Heidi wrote the reasons down in her notebook. When she goes to Hilltop Homes in Liberty, Thurman Hill lies to Heidi about her mother not ever being there when she was younger. When Heidi figures out he lied and why he lied, she figured that he lied because the truth was too hard to admit.**

**My third passage, "Life isn't fair sometimes, is it?" was said by Ruby. Ruby worked at Hilltop Homes and was the lady Heidi moves in with at the end of the book. She tells Heidi this when Heidi is struggling with problems of her mother's death. She didn't understand why her mom died when she was gone and why she thought it was so important to find the truths of her past because once her mother died, she realized none of her past mattered. Heidi thought it wasn't fair that after all the work she did and she finally found out about her past, and she was going to be on her way home, her mother dies. Ruby tells her that life isn't fair and she'll have to move on.**

**My youtube video is significant to my book because it gives a summary of the book. It gives you background information to the book and explains the important parts of the story. By watching the video you see what the book is about and some of the stuff that happens in it. It tells about her disabled mother and why she lives with her neighbor. It tells about her adventure to Liberty, why she goes there, and what happens when she is there.**

**The picture of the red sweater is significant to the story because this sweater is the thing that makes Heidi have the idea of going on her cross country trip. She she's her mother in a photo, but also she a lady in a red sweater with her mother. Then she finds the red sweater in the closet that she hasn't looked in in a long time. When she realizes that it is the same sweater as the one in the picture, she starts thinking that may be the lady in the picture with her mother is her grandma. That is when she realizes she wants to know about her past because everyone should know who their grandma is, she thinks.**

**The picture of the bus is significant to the story because a lot of things happen on the bus or by the bus. A lot of the book is about Heidi's journey on the bus. She meets new people and talks to a few different women. She learns things from each of them, like Alice taught her about lying and Georgia told her about where she came from and Heidi finally got to try her pie. Heidi learns to be independent on the bus. Also, at the end of the book you find out that Heidi's grandma got hit by a bus and that's how Heidi and her mother ended up on Bernadette's doorstep. Without the bus, the story would have been very different.**