Grace and the Bully: Drought on the Frontier

Reviewed by Regan Zaborowski (age 8) for Reader Views (5/08) "Grace and the Bully" is a good book about a pioneer girl whose name is Grace. She is ten, and lives with her parents in Cincinnati. Grace is not like other girls at her school. She likes running and playing like the boys, and her mom and dad are not happy about that. She likes to watch the boats on the big river, because her dad works on the boats. She likes to play with her cousin, Drew, who is the new boy from the big city called Boston. He is teased a lot by the school bully, who is called Raggy, but his real name is Russell. He is an orphan. Raggy picks on Drew and Grace, but Grace tries to get him to be good and not pick on them. One day Grace and Drew meet a pretty lady who is getting off a ship, and they help her get to the boarding house so they could get some money to help Grace's family. The lady teaches Grace to play the piano, but she plays in the tavern and her mom and dad scold her for that. There is a surprise at the end, when the lady meets Raggy and everybody finds out that he is not an orphan after all. I liked reading this book a lot. Grace liked to do things that I do, like running and playing outside, and playing music. I was sad for Raggy, because he was poor and had no family, but I didn't like it when he was mean to Grace and Drew. I felt proud of Grace for helping her family and trying to get Raggy to be nice to Drew. She seemed like a real nice girl. Another thing I really liked was that the story happened in Cincinnati. My aunt and uncle live there, and I have seen the big Ohio River where Grace liked to go. My mom and I talked about the lesson in the book, and I think it was that Grace liked to help everyone she met. She helped her parents by trying to get money when they needed it, and she helped Drew when Raggy teased him, and she helped the fancy lady that came into town when she got sick. She even helped Raggy, even though he was so mean. Everything turned out good for all the people in "Grace and the Bully" because Grace helped all of them.