Angel’s Grace

While on vacation on the island of Trinidad, twelve-year old Grace Brewster discovers a faded photo of a man who has the same hand-shaped birthmark over his heart that she has. She remembers the story her mother always told her about an angel who watched over her when she was a baby, sick in the hospital. And somehow, she knows that this must be her real father. The only problem is: how will she find him before her vacation is over?

Booklist

"Instinctively I always knew that I belonged somewhere else," says 13-year-old Grace, who, along with her younger sister, has left Brooklyn to spend the summer in Trinidad with their grandmother. At first, Grace misses her home and friends, and her ambivalent feelings are further complicated by a family photo album that offers clues to a secret she has long sensed. With the help of a sweet boy next door, Grace uncovers painful answers to her questions, as well as deep, rich connections to the island. Grace tells her own story with words and sketches (drawn by the author) in a moving debut that is as frank and authentic about sibling rivalry and family anger as it is about the earthy, fruit-scented tropical setting. Many readers will connect with the family secrets that leave "little pinpricks" around the heart, and Grace's joy when she discovers that "not all secrets . . . turn your whole world upside down. Some of them are sweet little things that are simply too delicious to let slip." — Booklist (Gillian Engberg)

Angel’s Grace