Amazing Grace
Grace wants to play Peter Pan, faces classmates’ claims about race and gender, sees a Black ballerina with Nana and wins the role through audition. Art, family support and demonstrated skill answer the exclusion.
Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman is estimated to take about 8 minutes to read aloud (689 words, 3 sentences a spread). Best for ages 4-8.
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- Estimated read-aloud time
- about 8 minutesEstimated read-aloud time
- Words
- 689Word count
- Sentences per spread
- 3Text density
- Re-read tolerance
- 4/5repeat friendly
- Vocabulary level
- 3/5a few new words
- Best for
- Ages 4-8Age range
Our review
Grace turns every story she hears into performance, so Peter Pan is a natural role for her before classmates say a Black girl cannot play it. Nana’s trip to see a Black ballerina provides a living counterexample, and Grace then earns the part at audition. The sequence joins imagination to representation and action rather than asking affirmation alone to carry the conflict.
The Day You Begin follows several children through feeling visibly different and gradually speaking into a classroom community. Amazing Grace is more plot-driven and names a specific denied role. Its triumphant casting should support, not replace, a direct conversation about why the race- and gender-based objections were wrong.
Before you buy it
Grace’s successful audition provides a satisfying result, but discrimination does not always disappear after one performance. The book uses an older edition’s school-play context and may require direct discussion of the classmates’ racism and sexism.
Themes
- imagination
- theatre
- grandmothers
- determination
- auditions
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