Still Just Grace by Charise Mericle Harper

Harper, Charise Mericle. 2007. Still Just Grace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

With the second in children's author Charise Mericle Harper's Just Grace series, we again join eight-year-old Grace; one of four Graces in her third-grade class. In order to distinguish the four Graces they have been christened Grace W., Gracie, Grace F., and, worst of all, Just Grace. When a new student teacher, Mr. Frank, joins the class, Just Grace decides this is her opportunity to get rid of the "Just" once and for all. But, when she informs the regular teacher, Miss Lois, that she wants to be called Grace or Grace S., Miss Lois dismisses her request with "Now is not the time to be confusing everyone with new names." Now, on top of worrying she is losing her best friend Mimi to a new boy in class, she is stuck with "the most dumb name in the world"; not to mention having to put up with superior, know-it-all Grace F. everyday. Luckily, Grace possesses a secret, invisible, super power; empathy power. According to Grace, "empathy power is the power to feel someone else's sadness, and then to try to make that sadness go away." Using her super power Grace manages to make it through each day, and quite often see and understand things from the perspective of others. Using short chapters, humorous, realistic narrative and dialog written in Grace's wise-beyond-her-years-but-still-eight-years-old voice; Ms. Harper invites readers into the complex world of third grade. Sprinkling the narrative with Grace's child-like doodles and sketches; what she did or imagined during the day, maps of the places she has been or is going, snippets of homework, and cartoons of Grace using her empathy power, visually enhances our visit to Graces' world. Still Just Grace reminds readers that things (and people) are not always what they seem and a little empathy for your fellow man (or kid) goes a long way in making the world a nicer place.