Customer Reviews

Just Grace

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just Grace is a fun and funny book about a girl named Grace. She gets her nickname because there are four girls in her class all named Grace. As the teacher was calling them "Grace (insert last initial here)", Grace asked if she could be called just Grace. So the teacher did.

Grace's super power is empathy. When I read this, I just knew I'd love this story. Grace has also got talent. When she tries to take her mind off of something that's bothering her, she draws what she calls Not-So-Super comics. Although you always kind of know that Grace's intentions are good, she does end up making mistakes and getting in some scrapes.

Grace ends up being an unlikely hero (just like the name of her favorite TV show 'Unlikely Heroes'). She devises a plan to cheer up her neighbor because her superpower, after all, is empathy. When none of it goes as expected, Grace works hard to set everything right.

I enjoyed Just Grace immensely. The story was well told. The illustrations were wonderful and whimsical too. Great book!!

I cannot do justice describing the charms of Just Grace. My 9 year old niece was reading it last summer and I picked it up to see what it was like. My children are 3 and 5 and adore Charise's books and I wanted to see what her "big kid" books had to offer. I was instantly charmed by Grace and had to finish the book. It is very funny and the story keeps you interested to very end. I love that a book geared toward 9-12 year old girls has a heroine whose super power is empathy. Grace is kind and feels for others, but is a realistic regular girl who knows to do the right thing, even if she would rather not sometimes. My 5 year old is a reader and she just read the book and cannot wait to move on to the others. It is such a nice change of pace for books in this demographic. My daughters love Junie B. Jones, but my husband gets exhausted correcting the grammar as he goes, as he cannot bear to read them as written. No such problems with the Just Grace series.
These are lovely, funny, charming books that should be in every book lover's collection.

As a family, we were first introduced to the Just Grace series with the fifth book. My daughter is six and has been brought up with tons of books, so she is now becoming more interested in chapter books with deeper story lines. When we hit upon a truly worthy work of children's literature, it's like magic. The two books of the Just Grace series that we have read thus far certainly fit that framework. I'm so enamored of them that I went out and bought the other three books for my daughter. We now have the complete series, and my husband and I look as forward to reading these at bedtime story time as my daughter does.

This book introduces us to the character of Grace, who has the unfortunate problem of sharing her name with three other girls in her class. A misunderstanding leads to her being labeled "Just Grace" and, much to her dismay, this moniker sticks. Harper really does a wonderful job here of capturing how annoyed and bothered Grace is by this--and who wouldn't be? The nickname makes Grace sound like some run-of-the-mill girl when she is anything but.

One of the wonderful things that Harper does in this series is to introduce some pretty big vocabulary words. Whenever she does so, she had Grace provide the reader with an explanation that sounds so sincere, it's hard not to smile. Grace picks these words up from her parents and defines them in this context, which makes us adults sound a little pompous at times.

In fact, the real charm of the series is how Grace pokes some fun at adults. She's not a disrespectful child at all, but my husband and I could recognize so much of ourselves in Grace's descriptions of adults. It's good for us all to stop and remember what it was like to be young and to look at the world through a young person's eyes. There were times when we laughed out loud because we recognized our own parenting in the descriptions of how Grace's parents reacted to certain situations.

As for Grace herself, she is basically a kind, caring young lady who is quite clever. She is by no means perfect, however. She unfairly judges her next-door neighbor and Sammy Stringer, a boy from her class who has an unfortunate habit of making a napkin out of his shirt. It is Grace's growth that makes the story the charmer it is. She owns up to making mistakes and then does her best to try to correct them.

The themes in the book really speak to my daughter. Like Grace, she is a young girl trying to figure out how to navigate her way through a world that it often bewildering to her. Grace's resilience and introspection are wonderful traits for a child. After reading the book, we often discussed Grace's reactions, creating the perfect parenting moments: when you reach your child at their level and teach them something in an entertaining way without having to lecture.

Perfect book for girl ages 8-10 years old especially if she doesn't love to read. I'm always looking for books that my daughter will not only read, but will
KEEP reading after she's a few chapters into the story.

Can you ever have too much grace? Evidently, because there are so many Graces in one class that they all must be called by other names. When she speaks up and tells the teacher that she wants to be called just "Grace," the young girl finds herself misunderstood and ends up "Just Grace" for the rest of the school year. Just Grace loves watching a TV show about real-life superheroes and decides that her special gift is empathy. Understanding that true empathy requires a response, Grace likes to help people feel better. When a weird teacher who lives next door breaks her leg and her beloved cat rejects her at the sight of the bright orange cast, Just Grace sets out to find a way to cheer the woman. Her efforts backfire, and another student is accused of a crime!

This precious story is so well-written! The highest compliment I could give it is that is sounds like it was written by a child. Just Grace's first person voice is so authentic that you feel like you are given a glimpse into the flittering thoughts of a young girl. The audio CD is one of the best audio portrayals I've ever heard in children's literature.

While the main character and cover art are definitively girly, a food-in-his-teeth boy character in the story who loves poop and belching provides enough "boy stuff" to be enjoyed by young male readers.

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Grace, who earned the nickname of Just Grace in school where there are six girls named Grace, loves cats, taking pictures of cats, and drawing Not So Super comics. She dislikes Sammy Stringer, who delivers papers and picks his nose.

She and her best friend have lots and lots of big ideas, so when Mrs. Luther's cat disappears, they send postcards to cheer her up. But even the best plans backfire sometimes, and soon Grace finds herself in trouble.

Grace is a hilarious young protagonist who comes up with ideas that are sure to make anyone smile. The characters in this book stay true to childhood, and looking back at my elementary school experiences, I'm sure that almost everyone will be able to relate to Grace and her friends.

Fans of the JUNIE B. JONES and AMBER BROWN series are sure to love JUST GRACE.

Reviewed by: Harmony

Our 7 year old LOVES this series. This book is funny, charming, authentic and sweet. Most importantly to those of us doing the bedtime reading, it is well written. We can't say that about many of the chapter books our kids have brought home, but we are now making our way through the series.
LOVE IT!

This book was purchased for my granddaughter, and she has not received it yet. She loves to read, and I am sure she will like this series, thank you

There are four Graces in the same class and each one, out of necessity, acquires a nickname. Our main character here, Grace, becomes "Just Grace," but it is not a nickname she likes.

Oddly, we discover that she is not really "Just Grace", but a Grace with a special ability; our Grace has empathy. Just Grace uses her powers to help a neighbor cope with a lost cat in a small but lovely little story.

This is my 7 year old's review:
This book is so funny especially when Grace makes postcards from Crinkles-the cat, to her keeper Mrs. Luther- Grace's neighbor. There are pictures of the postcards which are hilarious!! Then the cat goes missing & Just Grace & her friend try to solve the mystery of her disappearance.
I love this book. Girls would love it but I don't think boys would like it.