Richard Peck’s, A Long Way from Chicago is the first book in the trilogy about larger than life character Grandma Dowdel and her grandchildren, Joey and Mary Alice. (The second is A Year Down Yonder and the last is A Season Of Gifts.) Joey and Mary Alice are sent from Chicago to spend the summer each year with their Grandma Dowdel in rural Illinois. The book immediately grabs the reader’s attention: “You wouldn’t think we needed to leave Chicago to see a dead body. We were growing up in there back in the bad old days of Al Capone and Bugs Moran.” Grandma Dowdel is not to be outdone by anyone so she offers to hold the viewing of Shotgun Cheatham’s dead body in her parlor. Late that night when the body moves on its own Grandma takes out her shotgun and proceeds to shoot! (Little did the other participants know that it was just the cat causing the chaos.) Each chapter describes another year (during the Great Depression from 1929-1942) of antics their Grandmother subjects them to. From ghosts to outdoing the banker’s wife the reader is sure to enjoy Grandma’s antics.Peck grew up in Decatur, Illinois and certainly used his experiences to write this historical and hysterical fiction. Written in the point of view of Joey the readers get a glimpse into how Grandma rids the town of bullies and brings down the “society” class a peg or two! This well written book won a Newbery Honor Award. I enjoyed this book but liked A Season of Gifts even more! In A Season of Gifts Joey and Mary Alice are now adults and don’t visit any longer. But when a preacher and his family move next door the antics start all over again. I could relate to the characters more in A Season for Gifts.Novelist Plus suggests ages 8 and up but to get the full depth of life during this time I would suggest grades 4th and higher. Activities for this age group might include learning about Chicago gangsters and what life was like during this era. The website: http://libraries.risd.org/wallib/alon... has numerous activities relating to the book, include colloquialisms of the time. One example is “she hightailed it out of there.” Another activity would be a reader’s response journal chapter by chapter to share with peers in discussion groups.
A great book! Very funny. People who live in or grew up in small towns will recognize something of their lives in Grandma's small Illinois town where everyone knows everyone's business--"sometimes before it happens." Grandma herself is an unforgettable character. Crotchety and aloof from the rest of the town, shunned by most of her neighbors (until they need her help), Grandma gets the best of snobby society women, out-of-town interlopers, Halloween pranksters & theives, and school bullies by skillfully setting up situations where their own vices and vanities trip them up and get them in trouble. Underneath her hard exterior, Grandma of course has a heart of gold (but don't mention it to her; she'd only get mad) and she routinely cares for the people in her town who the more affluent and influential townfolk would ignore. You'll wish she were your grandma!My favorite part is the ending. (Spoilers ahead.)When the children leave after their week with Grandma in each of the seven chapters of the book, they wave from the train even though Grandma never waves back. In an epilogue set seven years after that last summer visit, the narrator Joey is 17 and on a troop train headed to basic training and, eventually, World War II. He has sent a telegram to Grandma to tell her that the troop train will pass through her town, though without stopping, sometime in the middle of the night. The train is two hours behind schedule when it finally does pass through Grandma's town in the hour before dawn. As it approaches Grandma's house, the last house in town, Joey sees that every light in the house is on, though Grandma always turned out a light when she left a room, and there's Grandma on the porch, "watching through the watches of the night . . . waving--waving big at all the cars, hoping [Joey'd] see." I cried.
What do You think about A Long Way From Chicago (2004)?
This book will always hold a special place in my heart. I read it aloud to my mother in her declining years...and she LOVED it. It's the story of a brother and sister who go to live with their grandma for a time during the Great Depression. Enough about the story. You know how I hate to summarize. Each chapter has some sort of closure, so it was a perfect read-aloud book. We could share a chapter, then pick it up days later. Many of the things the author wove into the story from the depression era brought back a spate of memories for my sweet Alice, so the book became a talking point as well as a laughing point. And let me tell you, we laughed our heads off. I'll never forget how Ermal, my stepdad, kept his distance when I first began reading the book. Soon, he sat down in a kitchen chair and began laughing at Granny Dowdle's outrageous antics...and the chair was inched closer and closer, until he was a full-fledged participant in the read-aloud. If you need a good belly laugh--and some heart-strings tugged along the way--(Granny has a marshmallow heart underneath her gruff exterior) you will enjoy this book. Read it aloud to someone you love!
—Lolene
So funny... and so touching. I read the series in reverse order, but that didn't matter.(A Year Down Yonder and A Season of Gifts are the other two.) Each book easily stands on its own. And it doesn't matter that these books were written for middle schoolers. They are a must read for anyone who needs or wants a dose of grandmotherly love. Grandma Dowdel is one of the most amazing people that I have ever met in a book. If it wouldn't make me look so crazy I would carry all three books about her everywhere I go so that I could keep her near me and pretend that she is my grandma--a standard of living life to its fullest to strive for...minus the shotgun. But then Grandma Dowdell doesn't seem to care what people think about her, so maybe I'll go buy this one and tuck it into my purse.
—Jeannie
A quirky, funny, and...perky small-town story. (Actually, it's a collection of stories; each one occurring as the two kids grow a year older and visit Grandma each summer). The first story was by far the best, and I found out that Peck originally wrote it as a short story which later morphed into this collection. Grandma isn't exactly the best influence, so you might want to save this until you're at least 10 and know that this is fiction and that her choices aren't exactly what you should copy (just read the book for yourself and find out). I'm also fond of 1933's story, "The Phantom Brakeman". The ending is rather heartwarming, and just as quirky as the rest of the book. Recommended for the fans of the Quirky Small Town Story genre.
—D.C.
