Just Grace and the Double Surprise

Title Page

Table of Contents

...

Copyright

Dedication

THE BIG NEWS NEXT DOOR

Copyright © 2011 by Charise Mericle Harper

All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children is an imprint of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

www.hmhbooks.com

The text of this book is set in Dante MT.
The illustrations are pen-and-ink drawings digitally colored in Photoshop.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data is on file.

ISBN 978-0-547-37026-2

Manufactured in the United States of America
DOM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
4500297677

 

For all Just Grace fans new and old.
Thanks for reading!

Any day now Mimi, my best friend in the whole world, is going to be getting a brand-new sister. The minute the special phone call comes, Mimi and her parents are going to rush out the door, jump into their car, and drive off to get her. Mimi can't wait for that day to happen. It's very exciting.

Mimi said the waiting for the special call is making everyone at her house really jumpy, especially when the phone rings. That's why her mom has a new rule about me calling Mimi on the phone. The new rule is
don't call
. If I want to talk to Mimi I have to go over and knock on her front door—but this is only until the sister gets here. After that I get to use the phone again.

I want the big day to happen too. I don't like the waiting part. It's a new kind of waiting that I haven't known before—it's excited plus nervous plus worried plus happy all mixed together. And even though it's for something really good and great, it doesn't feel super comfortable.

 

SOME KINDS OF WAITING I KNOW

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT LITTLE KIDS

Mom said that when kids are little their brains are like brand-new sponges—everything they see or hear soaks up into their brain and then stays up there forever. That's why kids are so good at learning new stuff—their brain-sponges are new. When a sponge is new it's really soft and excellent at holding stuff. When a sponge is old and used up it doesn't work so well anymore. Grown-up brains are like old sponges—they are worn out and can't pick stuff up very well, plus they are already pretty full. Sometimes even too full to hold anything new—like when Mom forgot my fifty cents for bake sale day even though I probably reminded her about it three, four, or even five times.

WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT

 

SPONGES AND BRAINS

WHAT I NEEDED TO DO RIGHT AWAY

If Mimi's sister's brain was like a sponge, then I had to make sure it was going to suck up and remember my Grace name and not my Just Grace name by accident. I did not want the wrong name to be staying in her head forever. That's why I got the idea to make her a book as a welcome-to-your-new-family present. I went to the library a couple of times to do research on books for little kids.

Because I like books, I was already knowing two things about kids' books:

1. My book for Mimi's sister had to be short.
   
2. It had to have pictures on every page.
   

Moms like to read short books at bedtime, so it was good that I was thinking about that part before I even got started. I bet if Mimi's mom read my book to the new sister even just eight or ten times, that was going to be enough for it to work perfectly. Mimi's new sister would never forget my real name.

After visiting the library I was hoping that Mimi's sister was not going to be like the kids that were in there when I was doing my book research. Those kinds of kids should only be allowed to touch special books—books that can't be destroyed by eating, drooling, or ripping. My book was just going to be paper and cardboard. I was a little worried about that.

LOOKING INTO THE FUTURE

I was writing the book for Mimi's sister so that I could solve the problem of Mimi's new sister calling me Just Grace before it even ever happened. This kind of thinking is called advance planning. I learned this from Mom. She is a pretty good what-could-happen-in-the-future thinker. Mostly she does her best work when we are going on a trip: she remembers snacks, water, tissues, extra clothes, and all that kind of stuff. She's not as good with regular everyday things. I think she gets lazy unless it's a special occasion.

WHAT IS KIND OF MARD

Writing a little kid's picture book is not as easy as you would think it would be. Mostly that's because this kind of book is not suppose to have a lot of words in it. It's surprising, but the hardest part is deciding which words to take out so that only the most important ones are left over. I think a book with more words might be easier.

THINGS I WANTED TO SAY IN MY BOOK

I wanted to explain how I got the Just Grace name from Miss Lois, our teacher, and how it was all a big accident. There are three other Graces in our class and Miss Lois thought it would be too confusing if we all kept our names like they were. She said we needed new names, so we could know whose attention she wanted if she called out the name Grace. Her big idea was to put the first initial of our last name at the end of our Grace name. I don't think anyone really liked it, but you can't argue with a teacher, because at school they mostly get to be the boss.

Since I was last in line for a new name I had the better idea to just be called Grace. And because no one else was using just
Grace,
it seemed perfect ... but it wasn't!