Saving Grace
Pretty, popular Grace seems surrounded with love and support and is looking forward to the neighbourhood Halloween party with her brother and her best friends. But that night a spark from a bonfire causes a terrible accident. Grace is left badly burned, with livid facial scarring, and not only her life, but that of her family and their friends, will never be the same again.
Saving Grace follows Grace’s return to school, where she is now the object of stares, mean comments and – from teacher Miss Wendy – misguided, cringeworthy efforts to be helpful. When Grace, who would usually have a leading role, is given the back end of the donkey to play in the forthcoming nativity play, she feels she has hit rock bottom, especially when Mary is played by arch-mean girl Diana. But Grace has a plan – to sabotage the play and get her revenge on everyone who has hurt her …
Saving Grace is an accessible narrative which dramatizes the effect of a life-altering accident on an individual and on the community which surrounds her. In the end, everyone has to learn to be more accepting and thoughtful – including Grace herself. Like all of Moriarty’s novels, Saving Grace encourages empathy and kindness: it is also a story full of humour – some of the play rehearsal scenes are hilarious – and heart.
