Grace by Morris Gleitzman

Grace Versus the Lions

Grace by Morris Gleitzman

Puffin Books, February 2011, 176pp

Morris Gleitzman is lucky his name is Morris Gleitzman because you wouldn't pick up his new book, Grace, for the cover. But thankfully his name is Morris Gleitzman – author of the unsurpassable World War 2 trilogy Once, Then and Now – and so I did put aside the cover and delve in, hoping to be enchanted. I wasn't disapppointed.

Grace takes place in one of those sect-like religious communities you find all over the world. The kind governed by self-appointed 'elders', where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and everything from the length of your hair to what you can say is dictated by rule of God – as interpreted by the elders.

Now I know what you're thinking: a religious book? No thanks, I'd rather eat chalk. Oh no you wouldn't.

For lo, it came to pass that the eponymous Grace's family is one that likes to ask questions: like whether God really wants such strict rules, and why can only people in their church go to heaven? Until finally the elders have had a chalice-full and they expel her father from the church. Which is fine, except that in their church, when somebody gets expelled, their family will never see them again. Unless one of the daughters is Grace, a strong, feisty wondergirl who's determined to get her father back.

It's an amazing read. Grace's struggle means breaking every rule of God she has ever known - talking to outsiders, questioning the rules. It reminded me of another stunning book where a young boy has to break through his personal barriers to get to the truth: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon.

Here too there is great humour, often unintentionally provided by Grace's God-fearing highschool friends, such as when Delilah tells her off for touching an unbeliever: 'You are so going to be smitten by wrath.' The flipside of this humour is the devastating figure of one of the elders, Grace's grandfather, whose single-minded version of religion leads him to humiliate Grace and try to convince her that her father is an evil influence.

Grace is a witty, lively, honest and absorbing narrator. Through her, Gleitzman casts no judgement on God, simply questioning the right of religion's self-appointed leaders to impose absolute rule.

Rarely have I found a book so simply and so well-told which prods conventional wisdom so gently but so emphatically. Grace is a book to make you unafraid to question. And it leaves you with the best motto of all:

"Be true to yourself."

http://www.morrisgleitzman.com/