Free Just Grace and the Double Surprise by Charise Mericle Harper Page A

best work when we are going on a trip: she remembers snacks, water, tissues, extra clothes, and all that kind of stuff. She's not as good with regular everyday things. I think she gets lazy unless it's a special occasion.
    WHAT IS KIND OF MARD

    Writing a little kid's picture book is not as easy as you would think it would be. Mostly that's because this kind of book is not suppose to have a lot of words in it. It's surprising, but the hardest part is deciding which words to take out so that only the most important ones are left over. I think a book with more words might be easier.
    THINGS I WANTED TO SAY IN MY BOOK
    I wanted to explain how I got the Just Grace name from Miss Lois, our teacher, and how it was all a big accident. There are three other Graces in our class and Miss Lois thought it would be too confusing if we all kept our names like they were. She said we needed new names, so we could know whose attention she wanted if she called out the name Grace. Her big idea was to put the first initial of our last name at the end of our Grace name. I don't think anyone really liked it, but you can't argue with a teacher, because at school they mostly get to be the boss.
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    Since I was last in line for a new name I had the better idea to just be called Grace. And because no one else was using just Grace, it seemed perfect ... but it wasn't!
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    Miss Lois obviously gets confused really easily. I wonder if it would have been different if I had said
only
Grace instead? Or maybe Only Grace would have become my new name.
    CHILDREN'S BOOKS CAN BE SNEAKY
    Some children's books have lessons mixed in with the fiction part of the story. This is a good way to get little kids to learn stuff without even knowing they are learning.
    I wanted my lesson to be "Even though you think you have a perfect plan, other people can still mess it up." I tried to fit it into the story, but I think it was too important and big for a little picture book—it's probably more of a chapter book thing, and I am not ready to write one of those!

    MY BOOK
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    This is your sister, Mimi.
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    Mimi is great!
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    This is your house.
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    Mimi lives in the house.
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    This is the house next to your house.
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    GRACE lives in this house.
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    GRACE is nice.
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    GRACE and Mimi are friends.
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    GRACE is waving bye-bye. It's time for GRACE to go home.
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    This is Crinkles. He is a cat.

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    Cats are dangerous!!!!!
    WHAT I AM WORRIED ABOUT NOW
    Writing the book solved my Just Grace problem, but when I was working on it I suddenly thought of a new problem. Crinkles! How were we going to keep Mimi's new sister away from him? Mimi is completely allergic to cats. If you pet a cat and then stand next to Mimi her body will totally know it. In about twenty seconds she will start sneezing. It's like she has superpowers for detecting cat germs.
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    Little kids love cats and dogs. The new sister will probably be touching Crinkles all the time. She will be a walking furball, and Mimi will have to stay away from her. Poor Mimi. Maybe the new sister would believe my story about Crinkles being a biting cat. I'm pretty sure if you write something that's not true in a picture book it doesn't count as a lie.

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    WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL
    Once you are worrying about one thing, you can start thinking about all the other things that you could worry about too. It's like there is suddenly a bridge into your brain and all the worries decide to run over it at the same time.
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    If this happens, the best thing to do is to get up and go do something else. Sitting and thinking just keeps the bridge open. Moving around can sometimes destroy it.
    WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
    I went downstairs to the kitchen to see what Mom was doing. I heard rustling and talking, so it sounded like maybe she and Dad were having a snack—I hoped it was a cookies snack. As soon as I walked into the kitchen they both looked up and stopped talking. When parents do