Richard Peck (1934–2018)

Don't mess with Grandma

I'm up at 4 a.m. It's an new old age thing for me, waking hours before the alarm. What a perfect time to read this book about another Grandma. I read it in one sitting, chortled and guffawed darn near every page.

Grandma Dowdel is one badass granny. Two city kids, Joey and Mary Alice, are sent to the small town to stay with Grandma, their dad's mom, for a week every summer between the years 1929-1935. There they learn an old-fashioned thing or twenty. Some of it show more outright illegal, some of it dubiously moral, all of it memorable. What goes on that action-packed week is tacitly agreed between brother and sister when they return to Chicago what goes on at Granny's stays at Granny's.

In their first ever week there, they are half-terrified of this unsmiling, opinionated, anti-social old lady who has no vehicle, no phone, no radio, but does have a shotgun that makes regular appearances. By the end of the very last summer's week there, they would follow her to the ends of the earth.

I wonder would a Granny, in 2024, be able to apprehend the criminal kids of the neighborhood, hold them by shotgun until their parents arrive, and not go to jail herself? Asking for a friend.

A new favorite! Looking now for more Richard Peck to read. His writing doesn't feel like writing; it's as smooth and easy as a hot knife through home-churned butter. show less

Archer Magill had four role models: his father, his grandpa, his Uncle Paul, and eventually, his fifth-grade student teacher, Mr. McLeod. Beginning with a wedding and ending with one, Archer chronicles his home and school life from the first to the sixth grades in this entertaining tale. His loving relationships with his parents, grandparents, and Uncle Paul, and his friendship with his schoolmate Lynette (sometimes Lynn) form the basis of most of the story in The Best Man, which addresses show more themes ranging from friendship to hero worship, sexual orientation to the death of loved ones.

Whatever 'issue' is foremost at a given moment in The Best Man, the story never takes second place, always feeling real and authentic. Peck creates a winning voice for Archer, whose narration captured and held my attention from the first page. I appreciated the fact that the author wanted to tell a story about gay marriage for grade schoolers, one in which there was minimal trauma, strife and/or melodrama, and think he succeeded very well. The sense of humor here is often quite sharp, but it is also humane, showing up the foibles and flaws of its characters without holding any of them up to ridicule. I read this with mostly unalloyed pleasure, and probably would have awarded it four stars, if not for the late-in-the-book inclusion of the character of Hilary, a snooty British student whose odious behavior (no doubt meant to be humorous?) added nothing to the story, and felt like an artificial distraction from an otherwise natural-feeling tale. Leaving aside that one flaw, this was an entertaining, thought-provoking, and heartwarming tale, one I would recommend wholeheartedly to any middle-school reader looking for family and/or school stories. show less

This book was one of School Library Journal's Best Books of 2016, and it lives up to the honor. Awesome, touching, and so, so funny. I read it in one sitting.

Archer Magill narrates his own story framed by two weddings. In the first, Archer is an bewildered ring-bearer at the age of six. Pressed unwillingly into the role, he has an incident with his too-tight-to-wear-underwear white velvet shorts involving mud and a split seam from which he is rescued by new friend Lynette, also six. In the show more second, Archer is the best man in the wedding of two of Archer's beloved role models.

Archer covers grades 1-6 in short bursts of narration, through which the reader sees his priceless friendship with Lynette and and the three amazing role models Archer is blessed to have: his father, his grandfather, and his uncle. All of the characters are so well drawn and so rich that you're all in, even when you meet the fairly ridiculous new classmate Hilary Evelyn Calthorpe toward the end of the book. Lynette, in particular, is a gem. Her friendship never falters, but throughout the book she is always seemingly years ahead of Archer in a familiar and super-funny characterization of boys and girls.

We race pretty quickly through grades 1-4, because the story centers around 5th and 6th grades. In 6th grade, Archer unexpectedly finds himself in middle school, as his school district re-aligns grade levels to maximize capacity in buildings -- something that is happening in my district right now. As Archer is a little boy for much of the story, we see his bewilderment at the changes middle school brings. Among other things, Lynette becomes Lynn, wears eyeliner, and clothes that deliberately show bra straps. But the big change comes in 5th grade with a student teacher whose mixed-up introduction to the school causes a lockdown and results in a world-wide media frenzy. The student teacher, Mr. McLeod, joins the pantheon of Archer's role models, teaching him about advocacy, identity, and acceptance. I LOVED this book! show less

It's 1937, and fifteen-year-old Mary Alice Dowdel finds herself having to leave Chicago and live downstate with her grandmother for a year due to her parent's financial troubles. It's a year of fun and adventure for Mary Alice as she settles into her new school and finds herself swept up in the chaos Grandma Dowdel causes as she rides roughshod over the small town's other residents. The school year of stories mostly revolve around the holidays: Halloween, Armistice Day, Christmas, and show more Valentine's Day.

I slightly prefer this sequel over A Long Way from Chicago as Mary Alice is a more interesting narrator with more character growth than her brother Joey.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Prologue -- Rich Chicago Girl -- Vittles and Vengeance -- A Minute in the Morning -- Away in a Manger -- Hearts and Flour -- A Dangerous Man -- Gone with the Wind -- Ever After show less