About this item
Laurie Morrison's Keeping Pace is a poignant middle-grade novel about friends-turned-rivals training for a half-marathon - and rethinking what it means to win and what they mean to each other. Grace has been working for years to beat her former friend Jonah Perkins's GPA so she can be named top scholar of the eighth grade. But when Jonah beats her for the title, it feels like none of Grace's academic accomplishments have really mattered. They weren't enough to win - or to impress her dad. And then the wide, empty summer looms. With nothing planned and no more goals or checklists, she doesn't know what she's supposed to be working toward. Eager for something to occupy her days, Grace signs up for a half-marathon race that she and Jonah used to talk about running together.
About the Author
Laurie Morrison taught middle school English for ten years and now writes middle grade novels. She is the co-author of Every Shiny Thing and the author of Saint Ivy: Kind at All Costs (May 18, 2021) and Up for Air, which earned starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly and was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a Publishers Weekly Best Summer Read. She holds a BA in English from Haverford College; an MA in Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English from The University of Arizona; and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @LaurieLMorrison and check out her website at lauriemorrisonwrites.com.
