Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff is a novel for middle readers about a foster child, the eponymous Hollis Woods, and how she finds a family. It was originally published in 2002 and became a Newbery Honor Book in 2003. In 2007, Hallmark Hall of Fame adapted the novel into a movie. Giff is the author of many popular books for children, including series like Kids of the Polk Street School, Friends and Amigos, and Polka Dot Private Eye, and several other standalone novels for middle readers that have won awards from Newberry and the ALA, amongst others. Her books are frequently taught and read aloud in classrooms. Pictures of Hollis Woods has been lauded as a good introduction to the experiences of some children in the foster care system.

Plot Summary

Pictures of Hollis Woods is primarily set in a single year of the life of Hollis Woods, who is also the first-person narrator. The novel has two timelines and switches back and forth between them in alternating sections. It gradually reveals what happened in the past while simultaneously tracking Hollis through the present.

After a lifetime of running away from foster home after foster home, the 11-year-old artist Hollis finds placement with a family called the Regans who welcome her to their summer cabin in upstate New York at the foot of a small mountain. Hollis almost immediately feels at home with the Regans, who consist of a practical father, the Old Man; a loving mother, Izzy; and a disorganized but deeply caring 12-year-old son, Steven. The Old Man gifts Hollis with a drawing set, and she produces many pictures of that beautiful summer.

Though she progressively opens up to the Regans emotionally and they to her, Hollis also notices that the Old Man and Steven arguing and secretly worries she is causing the tension between them. Near the summer’s end, the Regans ask Hollis if they can adopt her, and she jubilantly says yes. Hollis takes a solo walk up the mountain to celebrate and twists her ankle. Steven rescues her in the family truck, but they crash disastrously on the way down, leaving Steven badly injured. That night, Hollis decides the accident is confirmation of her negative influence and runs away from the Regans’s house. The Old Man tries to visit Hollis at the foster agency and asks her to come home, but she refuses.

The agency places Hollis in a new foster home with Josie Cahill, an eccentric retired art teacher. Though Hollis misses the Regans terribly and is haunted by her memories of them, she likes living with Josie. Hollis soon realizes Josie has some dementia and is unable to remember things consistently, but Hollis has come to feel protective of the old woman and wants to stay with her. She meets Josie’s cousin, Beatrice, a fellow former art teacher who compliments Hollis’s precocious drawings and tells her that art contains deep truths the artist may not consciously perceive. Josie’s forgetfulness soon leads to Hollis skipping school too many times, and when the agency finds out, they decide to send Hollis to a new home.

Unable to stomach leaving Josie alone, Hollis comes up with a plan. She knows the Regans have left their isolated summer house for the season, so she and Josie run away there and secretly move in. Josie can never quite remember why they are there, and though she finds the place beautiful, she misses Beatrice. Hollis does her best to take care of Josie and give her a good Christmas. Occasionally, she sees signs outdoors that someone might be watching them and worries the agency will find them. The day after Christmas, Hollis is in turmoil, missing the Regans and worrying that Josie is sad. She remembers what Beatrice said about art and spreads out all her drawings to see what they can tell her.

By inspecting the way she’s drawn everyone, Hollis realizes that Josie needs to be back with Beatrice and that the Old Man and Steven actually love one another. Soon, she also works out it’s Steven watching over them in Branches. Hollis runs out of the house and encounters Steven on his snowmobile; she explains why she ran away, and he assures her the Regans want her. Together, they call Izzy, and Hollis asks to come home. In the last chapter, we learn that Josie is now safe with Beatrice, the Regans have happily adopted Hollis, and Hollis even has a new baby sister.