Hope and Grace in Piney Woods

It is the summer of 1977, and ten-year-old Gracie Hope and her family have just arrived in Fillmore, a small town in the Piney Woods of Georgia, where her minister dad has been assigned as pastor of its United Methodist Church. It's not the first time they have made the move from one home to another for his ministry, and the amiable tomboy has learned how to make new friends and fit in with a good crowd.

But there are many "firsts" in Gracie's new life in Fillmore. Most of them are good ones-first impressions, first adventures, first crushes, first days of school. Some are not so good-first disappointments, first crises, first eye-openings to the fact that some people are not what they seem. It's also the first time Gracie has witnessed racism. Having come from the more progressive city of Atlanta, she is astounded at the way some of the people in town, even young people, cling to the prejudices of the Old South-even to keeping terrible secrets about crimes committed out of hate.

It may be the first time the members of Piney Woods Church have seen a pastor's daughter come to Sunday School in wildly colored Converse shoes, but Gracie has much to teach as well as learn. And, as she and her friends become trailblazers for racial harmony in Fillmore, people will see things in a new way for the very first time.