Boundless Grace - Hardcover

Hoffman, Mary

4.17

426 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803717156 ISBN 13: 9780803717152

Publisher: Dial, 1995

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Accompanied by Nana, Grace travels to Africa to visit her father, who left home when she was little, and learns that love can be without bounds even in divided families. By the author of Amazing Grace.

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About the Author:

Mary Hoffman has written more than 70 books for children, and her powers of observation bring vitality and humour to all her stories and retellings.

Her previous titles for Dorling Kindersley include Henry's Baby and A First Bible Story Book. Her best-known picture books are Amazing Grace, Three Wise Women, and An Angel Just Like Me. Mary lives in Oxfordshire with her husband and they have three daughters. The girls were brought up on myths and legends, of which Mary and her husband have an extensive collection.

From Booklist:

Ages 4^-8. In the first picture book about Grace, Amazing Grace (1991), the wonderful upbeat story is grounded in reality: the determined black girl's dream comes true, and she gets to play the part of Peter Pan in the school play because she's talented and imaginative, and because she practices and practices. Times are tough, people are prejudiced, but she makes it, with the loving support of her hardworking single-parent mother and grandmother.

In this sequel another dream comes true, and this time, it's not nearly as convincing. It turns out her absent father has really loved her all the time. What's more, he's a rich man in Africa, and he sends plane tickets for her and her grandmother to come and visit with his new wife and children. When they get to The Gambia, it's like a fairy tale in real life, far beyond the fantasy of any child longing for a father. Grace sulks for a while (she tells herself all the stepmother stories, from Hansel and Gretel to Cinderella), but everyone loves everyone, and soon there's not a sad or frowning face anywhere. Of course it's great to see Africa without the usual primitive and exotic stereotypes, and kids will enjoy finding the cruel fairy-tale stepparent transformed.

The text on the jacket's back flap goes on and on about the book's "authenticity," reassuring us that the British author and illustrator traveled to The Gambia and took photographs and made sure every single local detail was accurate. That's all very well and good, but unfortunately, it's the story that doesn't ring true.

Still, the paintings are glorious, the landscapes filled with light and color, the people strongly individualized, whether Grace is shopping for traditional fabrics, playing with her stepbrother, looking at crocodiles with her loving father, or talking on the telephone with the mother she misses badly. Hazel Rochman

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