A Long Way From Chicago (Puffin Modern Classics)
- ISBN13: 9780142401101
- Condition: New
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Join Joey and his sister Mary Alice as they spend nine unforgettable summers with the worst influence imaginable—their grandmother!
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I had a good cry at the end (and I’m a boy!),
A Long Way from Chicago is a touching and very funny book. The narrator, Joey Dowdel, shares the experiences of visiting his thrifty, hardworking, no-nonsense grandmother. Each chapter tells the adventures his sister and he have with his grandmother during each of seven week-long summer vacations. Long Way takes place during the Great Depression (1929-1935), so I learned some history while enjoying a great story. The coolest part of the book is when Grandma gets Joey a ride in an old biplane; the funniest is when the sheriff and his deputies drunkenly sing about Paddy Murphy while they’re wearing only their underwear at the Rod and Gun Club. My favorite character was Grandma Dowdel because of her use of words and the way she loved people without saying it. I didn’t pick out this book — my mom chose it as one of our read-alouds — but, like everything she picks out, this was really terrific. We shared a good cry at the end because we realized that Grandma is a lot “softer” than her tough words and actions showed. Happy reading!
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|Took Me Home,
I have to admit a certain attachment to this book. As a boy who grew up on one of those stops down the train line from Chicago, I felt a real connection to the story told in this book. Of course, unlike Joey, I didn’t just spend the summers in the small Illinois town downstate. I lived my life there and didn’t take the train upto Chicago until I was 17 and headed for college. Still, Peck has certainly caught the flavor of small town Illinois.
The bulk of this book takes place over the summers from 1929 to 1935. And yet, it’s amazing how much of those attitudes depicted in this novel still survive. My grandmother grew up during the Depression and much of the quirkiness and toughness balanced by family feeling shown in the character of Grandma Dowdel I remember in my own grandmother. That’s what makes Grandma Dowdel such a wonderful and realistic character.
And yet, there is also a glimpse of history here. Many things from the 1930′s–some good and some bad–are gone now and it’s fun to travel back in time through the pages of this book. I don’t know if kids today are effected much by stories of the past. The flashiness of twenty-first century culture is stiff competition to a story no matter how well-told but I certainly enjoyed this book. The best “childrens’ books” can be read and enjoyed by adults but I hope there are some younger readers out there who give this book a try. It will take you to a place that is sadly disappearing from the American landscape.
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|Check it out!,
I was skeptical at first as to whether I was going to read this book or not. It look all to familiar to the new over-glamoured novels that are just so-so reads in fancy covers. It was short, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to read in between school assignments over the weekend. After the first chapter, I could tell that this book was going to be really good. Somehow, Richard Peck had managed to give a new style to old charm, because the stories reminded me of some other authors writing styles, but with a new twist. The day after I finished, I went online to look for more of his books, in the hopes of finding another winner, and I think that even though other’s of his will be good, A Long Way From Chicago will be his best.
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