Grace And The Bully

She heard the reverend say that it was God’s will that all should come to repentance – that God willed no one to perish or be lost. Grace wondered, “Does that include people like Raggy and the riffraff that live in Sausage Row?” No matter how she twisted and turn the words around in her head, she just couldn’t see any way that she could love Raggy Langer or set an example for him. She wanted to strike him and make him leave Drew alone forever.

Book: Grace And The Bully by Norma Jean Lutz, Barbour Publishing 2006

 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Target Audience: Girls 10-14

Subjects: Love for others, bullying, poverty, responsibility, growing up

Summary: Grace doesn’t want to be little Gracie anymore. She longs to grow up and truly be helpful to her family. When drought strikes she gets the chance to grow up, but not the way she thought. She finds herself disobeying her parents while she goes out of her way to show love to some people that she previously thought of as bad and unworthy of her love, or God’s love for that matter. All of her attempts to be helpful won’t be enough though if the rains don’t come so the river rises again.

Notes: This book does a really good job challenging status quo! Grace and her cousin have to reach out and show love to people that are “bad”, including a saloon lady! It does communicate effectively that disobeying parents is never a good idea, but it also shows that sometimes what you’ve been told about people isn’t necessarily right. The Sisters In Time series does it's best to tell a historically accurate story about a young girl in a different time period. The goal is for young girls to see the similarities between themselves and the girls back in history.

Recommendation Scale: 4/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

2 Peter 3:9 – The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.