Amazing Grace

Title: Amazing Grace

Author: Marry Hoffman from a young age loved to read. Due to the influence of her two older sisters she taught herself to read before entering school. After high school Mary got her degree in English Literature for Cambridge. Throughout her career as a writer she has written over ninety books for children and teens.    

Genre: Fiction

Grades: 1-4

Subject Area: Character Education  

Summary: This story is about a little girl who loved stories. Grace always acted stories that her nana would tell her. She loved adventure the best.  She wanted to play the part of Peter Pan in her school play. When she raised her hand to play the part of Peter Pan even though she didn’t “fit” the part. The teacher gave the kids line to learn for an audition. Grace’s grandmother tells Grace she can do anything she wants if she puts her mind to it. 

Pre Reading Activity: Have the students do a pre-reading journal sentence/ paragraph starter in their journal. Have five different sentence starters up on the board and have the students write about one they like. Once students have finished writing their journal response and have drawn a picture about what they wrote about. Have them read aloud what they wrote to the class. 

Post Reading Activity: Have the class view the video film of Peter Pan starring Mary Martin as Peter Pan. Point out to the class that the role of Peter Pan is being played by a woman. Point out also that the part of Tiger Lily is not being played by a Native American. Encourage children to discuss whether they think that these parts should always be be played by a boy and a Native American? Why or why not? (Students might be interested to learn that hundreds of years ago, all the roles in Shakespeare's plays, for example, were played by men—even the roles of women—because women weren't allowed to be actors.) Why does the class think that Grace wanted the role of Peter? Have the students imagine which parts they would each like to play and tell why. (http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=397_type=Book_typeId=77.