A Season of Gifts

A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck is a charming, humorous and nostalgic look at a small American town in 1958. Elvis was king but most teenage girls were devastated that he had had to go to the army. Many people will be familiar with the character of Grandma Dowdel from the author’s previous books but in this outing she is helping a new preacher’s family settle in. This is a time when every loud noise makes people think that the Russians have invaded.

Grandma Dowdel is the town curmudgeon but quietly on the side she is a caring, giving woman. The story is narrated by 12 year old Bob, the preachers’ son who goes from being terrified of the old lady next door to pure admiration. She assists Bob after he had been strung up naked in show more her privy by the local bullies and by Christmas every member of the family has been touched by gifts she has provided.

A Season of Gifts is a light and fun read, exactly what I was looking for in these days leading up to Christmas. show less

A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck (Listened to audio book)

After last week's somewhat disappointing Richard Peck book, I unexpectedly discovered this new story, published in 2009, and featuring the eccentric Mrs. Dowdel from A Year Down Yonder and A Long Way from Chicago. It's 1958 and twenty years have passed since those books but Grandma Dowdel, in her nineties, is every bit as wily and hilarious.

When a preacher and his family move into an Illinois town, hoping to restore the dilapidated Methodist church and form a congregation, their neighbor proves less than neighborly. Ancient, massive Mrs. Dowdel keeps to herself, shoots her food, grows and sells her vegetables and is busy from dawn to dusk. This fascinates shy 12 year old Bob who show more steers clear of her but his little sister Ruth Ann has found a hero to worship and begins to imitate their odd neighbor, even pushing invisible specs up her nose and wearing a matching apron as she helps her with her chores.

Soon Mrs. Dowdel, whom no one would ever cross, sets to fixing what's wrong at her neighbor's house: getting people to attend the preacher's new church, giving Bob a chance to build his confidence and even getting 14-year old Elvis-obsessed Phyllis out of the clutches of the local tough guy. The manner in which she performs these minor miracles is very funny and I found myself laughing out loud more than once.

At Christmas, when Bob mentions to his father that Mrs. Dowdel doesn't believe in having presents under the tree, his dad tells him that she gives gifts all year long and that they're not the kind you find in a box with a bow around them.

The narrator for all three of the Grandma Dowdel books is Ron McLarty, one of the best in the business. I read the print edition of the other two books years ago, but I might re-read them in the audio format just for the chance to hear McLarty's priceless rendition of the indomitable lady. show less

Set a decade after the last book, Grandma Dowdel still runs roughshod over her little Illinois town, doling out her own form of justice to the wicked and for the downtrodden. Her new neighbors are a preacher and his family, trying to build a church up from nothing with hardly any resources. Under Grandma Dowdel's watchful, gruff care they get the things they need, even if those things aren't the things they expected.

It's mostly a series of vignettes, but the church and a romance between the preacher's daughter and a local bad boy provide engaging through lines.

The preacher's son isn't the greatest narrator, but this book is about as fun as the previous two.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents:

The Last House in Town
1. Locked and Loaded
2. Revival show more Dust
3. The Boy Next Door
4. The Figure at the Window
5. The Afternoon of the Turtle

The Fall of the Year
6. The Haunted Melon Patch
7. Fuss and Feathers
8. Indian Summer
9. Homecoming Day, and Night
10. One Too Many
11. Blazing Pumpkin

E'er the Winter Storms Begin
12. Come, Ye Thankful People, Come
13. Selective Service
14. Season of Secrets and Surprises
15. The Gift
16. A Christmas Wedding
17. A Visit from Saint Nick

Epilogue show less

Why do I do this to myself? It's like a scab you can't help picking at. I know Peck is going to annoy the hell out of me, yet I read the damn books anyway. To be fair, there is a lot less soapboxing than in most of his other recent books. My main problem with this one is that no person born this side of 1970 is going to get any of the references. And the narrator is feature-less. He has no personality or defining characteristics. And that Kickapoo princess is Problematic.

Ugh. Really. No. More. Peck. I'm done.

Grandma Dowdel is back to her old shenanigans in Richard Peck’s A Season of Gifts. This sequel to A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder takes place in 1958. Twelve year old Bob Barnhart and his family have moved to town from Terre Haute, right next door to Grandma Dowdel. In 1958 Elvis Presley is drafted and Bob’s father, a Methodist preacher is assigned to a new church in a tiny “podunk” Illinois town.

Bob’s initiation into town society is a dunking in the local ‘crick’ and being hog tied in Grandma Dowdel’s privy. Of course, Grandma Dowdel finds Bob, naked as a jaybird, hanging in her privy, almost as if in a spider web.

Ruth-Ann, Bob’s ten-year-old sister is entranced by Grandma Dowdel and together they show more become “partners in crime”. She begins taking on Grandma’s traits, such as pushing her non-existent glasses up to the bridge of her nose. It’s Bob’s mother, however, who takes the cake, sitting in Grandma’s yard with a cocked shotgun on her lap.

Richard Peck has the ability to take you back to the good old days, even if they weren’t necessarily that good and you weren’t even born. His characters are unique in every way. The description of Grandma’s wide girth, her old wrinkled friends and her hijinx will have you smiling, if not laughing. It does seem, however, that Grandma has mellowed a bit from A Long Way from Chicago. But that’s as it should be. She’s umpteen hundred years old. ..or so she seems.

Having read all three books in the series, I’d start at the beginning and work through this latest book. They’re fast reads and you’ll walk away in a much better mood than you were in prior to reading the books. Just don’t trespass on Grandma Dowdel’s property. She’s still a good aim with that shotgun. show less

Peck's distinctive storytelling style rings on every page of A Season of Gifts, the story of a young man (Bob) who moves into a small Illinois town so his dad can try to revive-- practically start-- a Methodist church. Bob is a preacher's kid, which of course almost begs for bullies to pick on him. Bob's older sister is hooked on Elvis and begins to disappear at odd times, and most readers will know immediately that she's sneaking out to see a boy, but Bob is too young to figure that out. As with Peck's previous books, there are hilarious situations that anyone who's been a kid can relate to-- even if modern kids can't imagine what life was like 50+ years ago (1958). The cover and title suggest the book is about Christmastime. It is show more not, or at least the first four-fifths isn't. But that's alright-- the season of gifts arrives soon enough and the story is a delight to read. The gifts themselves aren't the commercial kind we think of today. Rather, like much of the nostalgiac harkening back, the gifts are more meaningful. Much like Jean Shepard's In God We Trust, which contained the story that became the holiday favorite A Christmas Story, Peck's A Season of Gifts is a funny, wonderful look at growing up in a time gone by-- or perhaps at a time that never really existed, but through the nostalgia of decades we'd like to think once did. show less

Peck, Richard. (2009). A Season of Gifts. New York: Random House/Dial. 156 pp. ISBN 978-0-8037-3082-3 (Hardcover); $16.99.

Good news, readers, Grandma Dowdel is back! This time she is rescuing Bob, our protagonist who has moved next door, from her privy (and from bullies). Despite not being a churchgoer, she builds a congregation for Bob’s preacher father. Despite not being neighborly, she models the true essence of the best neighbor. Despite not seeming to care about anyone other than herself, she demonstrates over and over again compassion in the truest spirit of the Christmas season. These, however, are NOT the reasons to read this book. The humor is still fresh and I think this is because we have a different non-family, narrative show more perspective. The characters of Bob and Elvis-loving-Phyllis are authentic. Peck, as he often does, has many levels in which readers of all ages may appreciate the book. Grandparents will see the details of the historical period and understand the play on words. Younger readers will appreciate the fierce independence and fearlessness of Grandma Dowdel. Most importantly, perhaps, the underlying sweetness and heartfelt goodness of Grandma Dowdel (who does not go to Church, but knows the Bible and perhaps understands the Church better than the pastor) is not force-fed to readers, which explains why Bob’s youngest sister, Ruth Ann, idolizes this witchy woman. The message is very clearly there, but it is wrapped carefully as if it were the last present to be opened on Christmas Day. show less