SLIS 5420 - Module 10 - A Long Way from Chicago

Bibliography

Peck, R. (1998). A long way from chicago : A novel in stories (1st ed.). New York: Dial Books for Young Readers.

Summary

Every summer Joey and Mary Alice are shipped from their comfortable home in Chicago to their Grandma’s farm in the country. Grandma doesn’t have air conditioning, indoor plumbing, or even a radio. What Grandma does have is chores, heat, and a lot of personality. Joey and Mary Alice learn about their Grandma through the experiences they have with her every summer, such as the time where she blackmailed the sheriff in order to feed homeless people traveling down the railway, or the time where she shot the corpse of Shotgun Cheatham during the vigil in her own living room. The book is broken down into chapters for each summer that Joey and Mary Alice spend at Grandma’s, so the child characters change quite a bit from chapter to chapter, but Grandma rarely does.

Impressions

The book was a good look into how people lived during the 1930’s and the Great Depression. I really enjoyed the portrayal of the small town in which the children were sent to each summer being from a small town myself.

Reviews

“"What little we knew about grown-ups didn't seem to cover Grandma." Using life in a Depression-era small town as the backdrop, Peck regales us with seven thoroughly entertaining stories featuring larger-than-life Grandma Dowdel, a formidable woman whose un-grandmotherly ways are a constant source of surprise (and often shock) to her Chicago-bred grandchildren. For seven summers Joey and Mary Alice spend a week with Grandma, who claims she "like[s] to keep herself to herself," but who surreptitiously does exactly the opposite. Whether getting revenge on the town thugs with a cherry bomb and a dead mouse in a milk bottle or stealing the sheriff's boat to run her illegal fish traps, Grandma is a refreshingly undidactic character. Peck's skill as a stylist, his ear for dialogue, and his sense of drama are all in evidence here. Told with verve, economy, and assurance, each tale is a small masterpiece of storytelling, subtly building on the ones that precede it. Taken as a whole, the novel reveals a strong sense of place, a depth of characterization, and a rich sense of humor. Although firmly rooted in the past, there's no nostalgia here: issues such as bank foreclosures, Prohibition, and hungry drifters play a large part in Grandma's schemes. Armed with her twelve-gauge double-barreled rifle and her own sense of truth, justice, and ethics, Grandma will always be there, "stroking her chins," plotting revenge, and righting the world.”

Flynn, K. (1998). A Long Way from Chicago. Horn Book Magazine, 74(6), 738-739.

“Rollicking celebration of an eccentric grandmother and childhood memories. Set in the 1930s, the book follows Joe and Mary Alice Dowdel as they make their annual August trek to visit their grandmother who lives in a sleepy Illinois town somewhere between Chicago and St. Louis. A woman with plenty of moxie, she keeps to herself, a difficult task in this small community. However, Grandma Dowdel uses her wit and ability to tell whoppers to get the best of manipulative people or those who put on airs. She takes matters into her own hands to intimidate a father who won't control his unruly sons, and forces the bank to rescind a foreclosure on an elderly woman's house. Whether it's scaring a pretentious newspaper man back to the city or stealing the sheriff’s boat and sailing right past him as he drunkenly dances with his buddies at the Rod & Gun Club, she never ceases to amaze her grandchildren with her gall and cunning behavior. Each chapter resembles a concise short story. Peck's conversational style has a true storyteller's wit, humor, and rhythm. Joe. The narrator is an adult looking back on his childhood memories; in the prologue, readers are reminded that while these tales may seem unbelievable, "all memories are true." Perfect for reading aloud. A Long Way from Chicago is a great choice for family sharing”

Brommer, S. (1998). A Long Way from Chicago: A Novel in Stories. School Library Journal, 44(10), 144.

Library Use

This would be a great book to introduce a new reader into the era of the Great Depression. The town is ambiguous enough to be anywhere in the United States and the story is light enough to make reading about it fun.