ONE GREAT BOOK

Just finished this book and what a great read.   It has received 4-5 stars in a load of reviews from"GOOD READS".  I can't sum it up as good as the words below:

"In this award-winning, coming-of-age novel, ten-year-old Gracie Lee struggles to make sense out of her life as an Arkansas farm girl in the early 1970s. Wise beyond her age yet imbued with child-like innocence, Gracie focuses on the three things that keep her awake at night:

1. Solving the mystery of the man in the gray house;
2. Surviving another school year at Savage Crossing Elementary; and,
3. Saving her alcoholic Daddy from himself (and thereby saving the whole family and wider world).

​Gracie feels certain there is more to life beyond school and dull church sermons. She worries about the soldiers in Vietnam and wonders what it must be like to have been born Lisa Marie Presley from Tennessee instead of Gracie Lee Abbott from Arkansas. Mostly, she wishes her Daddy wasn't so mean".

It became a book I couldn't put down.   I just open to pages when I was finished and found some great writing to share:  

"The truth spilled from my lips in one spindly breath".  

"Mama eventually said I was grounded which was no big surprise.   Parents always threw grounding on top of a punishment like a final exclamation point".  

"Piano music drifted from Mrs. Allard's classroom and found me on the sidewalk before I reached the door.  It was a slow song that reminded me of the background music in a depressing movie.  When I peeked through the window, I saw her playing, her feet pumping the pedals and her wrists tilted in a graceful position I could never master.  She closed her eyes as if she had a special secret".  

Lovely wording appears throughout the whole novel.   There are also discussion questions at the end, making one think about what they read.   

It became a book among my favorites!