This Is Graceanne's Book: A Novel - Softcover

Whitney, P. L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312272782 ISBN 13: 9780312272784

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001

Synopsis

The story is told by a nine-year old boy, Charlie, who observes with an encompassing awe a pivotal year in the life of his older sister Graceanne. She's loud, intellectual and a ruthless physical and psychological daredevil, a girl whose ferocious exploits are the stuff of local legend and the stuff of all that Charlie aspires to be. He narrates Graceanne's painful passage into teenage, a passage made tempestuous by their violent mother.

About this title

About the Author:

P.L. Whitney lives in New Jersey.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

"Graceanne was upstairs in the Green Measles Room. She wouldn't be going to school in the afternoon because she was "poorly." And we all knew why.

The older kids decided...to move on when a Champion for Eternity was finally crowned. Of course, my twelve-year-old sister Graceanne--braving the hellfire that my mother would shower on her when she was found--never heard the word "champion" without her ears standing out from her head. She had kept us all out past ten o'clock at night earlier in the week, until, scared out of our wits, we gave up.

...Edie called the Sheriff and the army engineers and the Flood Relief Committee and stayed up all night praying. Graceanne didn't come in for two days, and we learned that she had been holed up in the flooded basement of the school the whole time.

...The big flooded classroom downstairs at the school was for many years called the Graceanne Farrand Memorial Pool, in respectful acknowledgment of her achievement--long after the water was finally pumped out by the army engineers."

--from This Is Graceanne's Book

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312272782
• ISBN 13: 9780312272784
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304