| Grandma
Dowdel would be called a curmudgeon. Never one to socialize with
the rest of town, she marches to a different drummer. This crustiness makes
for interesting summer visits in the heart of the Great Depression for
her grandchildren, Joey and Mary Alice. Richard Peck tells
about the adventures they encounter from the summer of 1929 to the summer
of 1935. Every summer Grandma does something absolutely amazing,
like putting a dead mouse in a bottle of milk, which leads to four very
bad boys getting a well deserved whipping. There are other stories,
such as the one about Joey and Mary Alice's first sight of a corpse in
1929, Grandma's own particular brand of charity in 1931, and the phantom
brakeman in 1933. All good short stories on their own, but together
they make a memorable and enjoyable book (Jeannie Bellavance bellavance@erols.com.
for
Pennsylvania
Young Reader's Choice Awards)
Booktalk #2
"As the years went by, though,
Mary Alice and I grew up, and though Grandma never changed, we'd seem to
see a different woman every summer." Mary Alice and Joey visit their Grandma
Dowdel's every summer. Every year, they experience crazy and out of control
events that normally they wouldn't see in their hometown of Chicago. During
the one-week trip they make every year to Grandma Dowdel's, the two children
experience events such as stealing the sheriffs boat to go fishing, switching
the gooseberry pies at the fair, and helping two lovers get away on a train.
Over the course of seven years, the children experience events they never
would have partaken in, and they gained many memories to cherish. In this
historical fiction book, called A Long Way from Chicago, Richard Peck shows
what times were like between 1929 and 1942. Having won a Newberry award
for this book, readers will enjoy the different stories that are told and
will want more by the end. (Jennifer Sarff, JR-Sarff@wiu.edu,
college student) |
