Gracie

Irish author Judi Curtin writes warm, living and breathing characters, easy for young readers to identify with, and Gracie is an archetypal Curtin creation.  It’s 1930 and Gracie lives in a small village in Ireland with her family. With five brothers and sisters and a new baby on the way, money is tight and there’s never quite enough food to fill everyone up at dinner time. Gracie struggles with her reading at school but is a keen and talented needlewoman and this turns out to be important in all sorts of ways. When an uncle dies, Gracie’s mum decides her daughter will leave the family home and move in with Auntie Peg. Gracie is lonely, missing her family and the subject of extremely cold treatment by her cousin’s family, who suspect (rightly) that her mother has her eyes on the field that was Uncle Patrick’s. Her aunt is a quiet, kind woman, very like Gracie in fact, and the two bond over a shared love of needlework. It’s the arrival of a company of Players that gives Gracie the chance to find friends however and to make even more of her skill with needle and thread. The story provides a strong sense of the times, of the lives lived by families like Gracie’s, and highlights the lack of choice there was for many young men and especially young women. It’s gentle but absorbing and rewarding reading, its central character one young people will love.