Grandma Dowdel's back! She's just as feisty and terrifying and goodhearted as she was in Richard Peck's A Long Way from Chicago, and every bit as funny. In the first book, a Newbery Honor winner, Grandma's rampages were seen through the eyes of her grandson Joey, who, with his sister, Mary Alice, was sent down from Chicago for a week every summer to visit. But now it's 1937 and Joey has gone off to work for the Civilian Conservation Corps, while 15-year-old Mary Alice has to go stay with Grandma alone--for a whole year, maybe longer. From the very first moment when she arrives at the depot clutching her Philco portable radio and her cat, Bootsie, Mary Alice knows it won't be easy. And it's not. She has to sleep alone in the attic, attend a hick town school where in spite of her worn-out coat she's "the rich girl from Chicago," and be an accomplice in Grandma's outrageous schemes to run the town her own way--and do good while nobody's looking. But being Grandma's sidekick is always interesting, and by the end of the year, Mary Alice has grown to see the formidable love in the heart of her formidable Grandma.

Peck is at his best with these hilarious stories that rest solidly within the American literary tradition of Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Teachers will cherish them as great read-alouds, and older teens will gain historical perspective from this lively picture of the depression years in small-town America. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell


From Publishers Weekly
In this Newbery Honor book, Chicago-bred Mary Alice has been sentenced to a year-long stay in rural Illinois with her irrepressible, rough and gruff grandmother. Soon, however, she becomes Grandma's partner in crime, helping to carry out madcap schemes to benefit friends and avenge enemies. In a starred review, PW called this sequel to A Long Way to Chicago "hilarious and poignant." Ages 10-14. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-Richard Peck's Newbery Award-winner (Dial, 2000) is a multi-layered story of small town life spiced with humor, love, and a bit of history. Although 15-year-old Mary Alice Dowdel is none too happy when she must spend a year with Grandma Dowdel. It's 1937, and her parents are only able to afford a small room in Chicago, and her much-loved older brother, Joey, is off serving in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Mary Alice worries about fitting in at the two-room schoolhouse, and wonders how she'll cope with her crusty, sometimes embarrassingly eccentric grandmother. Harsh Depression era realities are not ignored, but listeners will spend most of their time laughing at the way Grandma outwits a classroom bully, some Halloween pranksters, and the local D.A.R. An itinerant artist, a risqu‚ postmistress, and a community full of memorable characters provide more laughs. After twelve months, Mary Alice feels at home in this tiny Illinois town, and has developed a new respect and abiding affection for her maverick grandmother. Lois Smith's masterful comic timing has a country flair that conveys Peck's humorous and heartwarming book perfectly. This is a must buy for every library with audiobook collections. Even high school and adult audiences will enjoy A Year Down Yonder.-Barbara Wysocki, Cora J. Belden Library. Rocky Hill, CTCopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Winner of the 2001 Newbery Award, A Year Down Yonder is the charming companion to Peck's 1999 Newbery Honor winner, A Long Way from Chicago. This time, Mary Alice regales us with tales of life with Grandma Dowdel during a long year spent in Grandma's "hick town," where no one is as modern, as sophisticated, or as clever as Mary Alice is. However, Grandma Dowdel is every bit as snappish, quirky, and gruff as always. While the same wonderful storytelling quality infuses this volume, and Lois Smith's clearly middle-aged voice is very effective in reading Grandma's crusty dialogue, Mildred Burdick's surly sneer, and Miss Butler's teachery tones, it is a bit less effective for Mary Alice's youthful first-person narration. Nevertheless, the humor of Mary Alice's situation and her many scrapes with a cast of eccentric small-town characters are guaranteed to entertain. T.B. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Gr. 6-10. With the same combination of wit, gentleness, and outrageous farce as Peck's Newbery Honor book, Long Way from Chicago (1998), this sequel tells the story of Joey's younger sister, Mary Alice, 15, who spends the year of 1937 back with Grandma Dowdel in a small town in Illinois. It's still the Depression; Dad has lost his job, and Mary Alice has been sent from Chicago to live with Grandma and enroll in the "hick-town's" 25-student high school. As in the first book, much of the fun comes from the larger-than-life characters, whether it's the snobbish DAR ladies or the visiting WPA artist, who paints a nude picture of the postmistress (nude , not naked ; he studied in Paris). The wry one-liners and tall tales are usually Grandma's ("When I was a girl, we had to walk in our sleep to keep from freezing to death"), or Mary Alice's commentary as she looks back ("Everybody in this town knew everything about you. They knew things that hadn't even happened yet"). That adult perspective is occasionally intrusive and Mary Alice sometimes seems younger than 15, though her awkward romance with a classmate is timeless. The heart of the book is Grandma--huge and overbearing, totally outside polite society. Just as powerful is what's hidden: Mary Alice discovers kindness and grace as well as snakes in the attic. Most moving is Mary Alice's own growth. During a tornado she leaves her shelter to make sure that Grandma is safe at home. In fact, as Mary Alice looks back, it's clear that Grandma has remained her role model, never more generous than when she helped her granddaughter leave. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
Mary Alice's childhood summers in Grandma Dowdel's sleepy Illinois town were packed with enough drama to fill the double bill of any picture show. But now she is fifteen, and faces a whole long year with Grandma, a woman well known for shaking up her neighbors-and everyone else! All Mary Alice can know for certain is this: when trying to predict how life with Grandma might turn out . . . better not. This wry, delightful sequel to the Newbery Honor Book A Long Way from Chicago has already taken its place among the classics of children's literature.


Card catalog description
In 1937, during the Depression, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice, initially apprehensive about leaving Chicago to spend a year with her fearsome, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois, gradually begins to better understand and admire her grandmother's unusual qualities.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Richard Peck, whose hysterical historical novel, A Long Way to Chicago, was a 1999 Newbery Honor Book, does it again. This time out, Peck wins the 2001 Newbery Medal for A Year Down Yonder, the sequel to his 1999 award winner, which introduced the indomitable and fearsome figure of Grandma Dowdel as viewed through the eyes of her grandson Joey. Once again Peck takes his readers to the tiny Illinois town where this coolly conniving grandmother lives, but now we see her through the eyes of her granddaughter, 15-year-old Mary Alice.

It's 1937, and while rumor has it that the worst of the Depression is over, the "Roosevelt recession" is firmly in place. It's not bad enough that Mary Alice's dad has lost his job, or that her parents are being forced to move into a "light housekeeping" room, or that her older brother Joey has gone off to plant trees out west with the Civilian Conservation Corps. Now Mary Alice must spend a year living with her feisty and formidable grandmother in a hick town where the other kids in school think of her as the "rich Chicago girl." Grandma Dowdel is well known about town and most of the residents cower in fear at the mere sight of her. It's a fear well justified, for the woman has little tolerance for fools, a rifle she knows how to use, and a knack for cooking up outrageous schemes. At first, Mary Alice finds herself an unwitting (and often unwilling) accomplice to some of Grandma's more shocking manipulations, but as time goes by, Mary Alice discovers a knack of her own when it comes to conniving.

Peck evokes a wonderful sense of time and place, depicting the harsh realities and simple lifestyles of these Depression-era folk through catchy colloquialisms and delightful details. Grandma Dowdel is a truly unique and unforgettable character capable of generating awe as well as side-splitting laughter. The supporting cast is equally entertaining, from the bumbling antics of the local farm boys to the snooty-nosed members of the local DAR group. And as Mary Alice struggles to deal with some typical (and not so!) adolescent problems -- peer pressure, poverty, love pangs, and the indignities of using a privy -- Grandma Dowdel teaches her some of the larger lessons in life, including her own brand of justice and the real meaning of unconditional love.

--Beth Amos

ANNOTATION

Winner of the 2001 Newbery Medal

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Mary Alice and Grandma Dowdel return for more astonishing, laugh-out-loud adventures when fifteen-year-old Mary Alice moves in with her spicy grandmother for the year. Her extended visit is filled with moonlit schemes, romances both foiled and founded, and a whole parade of fools made to suffer in unusual (and always hilarious) ways.

Wise, exuberant, and slyly heartwarming, Mary Alice's story is a fully satisfying companion to the celebrated A Long Way from Chicago.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this Newbery Honor book, Chicago-bred Mary Alice has been sentenced to a year-long stay in rural Illinois with her irrepressible, rough and gruff grandmother. Soon, however, she becomes Grandma's partner in crime, helping to carry out madcap schemes to benefit friends and avenge enemies. In a starred review, PW called this sequel to A Long Way to Chicago "hilarious and poignant." Ages 10-14. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

In this hilarious and poignant sequel to A Long Way to Chicago, Peck once again shows that country life is anything but boring. Chicago-bred Mary Alice (who has previously weathered annual week-long visits with Grandma Dowdel) has been sentenced to a year-long stay in rural Illinois with her irrepressible, rough and gruff grandmother, while Joey heads west with the Civilian Conservation Corps, and her parents struggle to get back on their feet during the 1937 recession. Each season brings new adventures to 15-year-old Mary Alice as she becomes Grandma's partner in crime, helping to carry out madcap schemes to benefit friends and avenge enemies. Around Halloween, for example, the woman, armed with wire, a railroad spike and a bucket of glue, outsmarts a gang of pranksters bent on upturning her privy. Later on, she proves just as apt at squeezing change out of the pockets of skinflints, putting prim and proper DAR ladies in their place and arranging an unlikely match between a schoolmarm and a WPA artist of nude models. Between antic capers, Peck reveals a marshmallow heart inside Grandma's rock-hard exterior and adroitly exposes the mutual, unspoken affection she shares with her granddaughter. Like Mary Alice, audience members will breathe a sigh of regret when the eventful year "down yonder" draws to a close. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature

A Year down Yonder seems more a companion than a sequel to Peck's 1999 Newbery Honor book, A Long Way from Chicago. Peck shows his brilliance in setting up parallel structures and creating two very different books. In the first book, Joey and his younger sister, Mary Alice spend a series of summers with their cantankerous, eccentric grandmother and Joey tells the story. The second book takes place in 1927. Joey is working with the CCC planting trees out west, their father is out of work, and sixteen-year-old Mary Alice must spend a year with her grandmother enrolled in a hick school. There is continuity of place and character in both books. The small town's culture is still the same, those who are snobby have no right to be, those who have no money are rich in some way, and everyone fears Mary Alice's grandmother. Mary Alice's voice and sensibilities are different than Joey's. Her voice is softer, more poetic and inquisitive. As much as Joey loves his grandmother, his understanding comes in glimpses and never runs quite as deep as Mary Alice's perceptions. Shared history and gender has allowed Mary Alice to understand and trust her grandmother's Robin Hood style of justice. She knows the deserving always receive a big slice of pie, whether it is pecan or humble. There are still wonderful similes and colorful dialogue, especially coming from Grandma. She sums out whole stories in a vivid sentence, or two. "When I was a girl," she tells Mary Alice, "a tornado hit an outdoor band concert. It twisted the tuba player four feet into the ground like a corkscrew before we could get help to him." These are the lines that make you laugh out loud. When Mary Alice questions her grandmother about theage of an ancient woman, she answers, "You would have to cut off her head and count the rings in her neck." Soon Mary Alice begins to see, think and talk like her grandmother. From pithy, startling analyses like the time she sizes up a bully and declares, "If you are going to read minds, start with a simple one," to her las

VOYA

Sequels are a tricky business. Many are pale companions to their originals. With a skillful writer such as Peck, however, sequels can shine and sparkle with new life. Such is the case with this sequel to his Newbery Honor-winning A Long Way from Chicago (Dial, 1998/VOYA December 1998). The year is 1937, and the aftermath of the Great Depression is still being felt by the Dowdel family. Reluctantly, the Dowdels decide to send Mary Alice to live with Grandma for a year. Mary Alice barely has been able to endure summers with Grandma in the company of her older brother. How will she survive a year in this hick town by herself? Present in this hilarious tale are the requisite "villains"—young boys wreaking havoc on Halloween, snooty women who dare to leave Grandma out of their plans, and others too blind to see Grandma as a more than formidable opponent in any fight. Told in a series of interlocking stories as was the first book, the novel never loses its charming sense of humor even though the vignettes ultimately deal with important issues such as class, gossip, and friendship. This book will make an excellent read-aloud to middle school classes. History teachers might want to share a story or two from the novel as a lead-in to the discussion of the society of the Great Depression and the recession that followed. VOYA CODES: 5Q 3P M (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8). 2000, Dial, 144p, $16.99. Ages 12 to 14. Reviewer: Teri Lesesne

SOURCE: VOYA, December 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 5)

Alan Review