A Long Way from Chicago

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 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, show more 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

Audiobook performed by Ron McLarty

When Joey was nine and his sister Mary Alice was seven their parents put them on the train to go visit their Grandma Dowdel. They were city kids and you’d think they’d seen everything. But it was over several summer “vacations” in Grandma’s sleepy small town in Southern Illinois that they: saw their first corpse, helped Grandma get back at a gang of thugs trying to terrorize widows, trespassed on private property, illegally trapped fish, caught the sheriff in his underwear, and witnessed firsthand the toll the Great Depression took on people.

What a wonderful novel of a time gone by. There’s a certain innocence to having Joey narrate, although he and Mary Alice do grow up over the seven show more years the novel’s stories span. I was laughing aloud at several of the shenanigans Grandma perpetrated. The writing is action-packed and very atmospheric. I itched with the memory of chigger bites, felt the torpidity of a humid summer day, smelled the heavenly aroma of fresh fruit simmering on the stove, and heard the sounds of a summer night. I couldn’t help but think of my own summer vacations at Grandma’s house in the dusty little Texas town she called home. With no television, no air-conditioning, and no car we had to find ways to amuse and entertain ourselves. And if we dared to be “bored” she’d find something for us to do (usually involving hard, sweaty work). A lot like Grandma Dowdel!

Ron McLarty is marvelous performing the audiobook. His voice for Grandma is priceless! When I finished listening, I immediately picked up the hardcover book and started reading from the beginning.

This may be a children’s book, but I’ll wager that adults will appreciate it even more. show less

Joey and Mary Alice Dowdel are growing up in Chicage during the 1930s, the age of gangsters, bank robbers, and the Great Depression. One would think they would see all there was to see in Chicago, but as it turns out, their more interesting life experiences come from the week they spend with their grandmother in a small town south of Chicago each summer. According to a much older Joey looking back on those life-altering August weeks, Grandmas was as large as life, if not larger.

Now I'm older than Grandma was then, quite a bit older. But as the time gets past me, I seem to remember more and more about those hot summer days and nights, and the last house in town, where Grandma lived. And Grandma. Are all my memories true? Every word, and show more growing truer with the years.

A Long Way from Chicago consists of a short story for each year that Joey and Mary Alice visit Grandma. Each year, the kids grow up a little more and grow to understand Grandma a little better. Each year, Grandma's antics make for the kind of family stories that become almost mythical in the telling and re-telling. With a strong sense of justice, a veiled capacity for kindness, and a clever way of putting people in their place when they need it and helping people out when they can't help themselves, Grandma proves herself to be nothing if not a person of action. As Joey and Mary Alice grow older they go from not quite knowing what to expect from their stern, practical grandma to always expecting that she'll be up to something.

A Long Way from Chicago is an immensely enjoyable little book about a grandma that's tough as nails on the outside but, on the inside, is the sort of decent and resourceful ally you'd want in your corner. It's obvious that beneath her rough exterior she loves both her grandchildren fiercely. Whether you're young or old you'll get a kick out of Grandma's way of handling her town's busybodies, but if you're looking closely, you'll also find a story subtly woven with a grandmother's love, never more profoundly shown than in the last chapter, which brought me to tears. show less

Richard Peck has quickly became one of my favorite authors. This story and its sequel are probably my favorites by him, but they're all great. His writing style is so easy to read, it sucks you into the world he's created and just carries you along for the tale.

The characters in this story are among my favorite of all time......everyone needs a Grandma Dowdel in their life! If favorite seems to be a pattern in my review....it's for a reason....Peck is that kind of writer. If you haven't read anything by him, you're missing out.

Over a series of summers during the Great Depression, Joey and his sister Mary Alice travel to their larger-than-life grandmother’s rural home, experiencing wild adventures that bring them closer together and teach them about their family’s past. Each chapter is a different year and a different story, filled with humor and heart.
Grandma Dowdel’s antics taught me that family stories are our most cherished inheritances.

This book is made up of several short stories about Joey and Mary Alice's summer visits to their Grandma Dowdel's home in a small Illinois town during the Great Depression. The stories are all beautifully written, evoking small town life and all its little quirks. Grandma Dowdel is a larger-than-life character whose eccentricities will guarantee her a spot in every reader's memories. After all, who could forget a woman who would calmly pass the sheriff by in his stolen rowboat with a basket full of illegal fish caught on private land? The book will leave readers with a vivid picture of small town life in the early twentieth century, and more importantly will have you wishing you could spend a hot summer week following Grandma Dowdel, show more watching to see what she'll do next. show less

Back in the 1990s my wife and I had a project of trying to read all the Newbery Medal books. We made a pretty good run of it but got bogged down by some series where the Newbery book fell in the middle. Twenty-some years after we set the list aside, we're going to see if we can get back into it. Here's an Honor Book that precedes the actual Medal winner.

A brother and sister leave Chicago every summer from 1929 to 1935 to visit their grandmother in Downstate Illinois. Grandma Dowdel is a colorful, larger-than-life figure: willful, petty and spiteful, with a strong sense of justice, be it within or -- more usually -- above the law.

She's a hero to those she likes and a terror to those that cross her. And her adventures are amusing yarns show more that verge on tall tales.

Fun.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Prologue -- Shotgun Cheatham's Last Night Above Ground ~ 1929 -- The Mouse in the Milk ~ 1930 -- A One-Woman Crime Wave ~ 1931 -- The Day of Judgment ~ 1932 -- The Phantom Brakeman ~ 1933 -- Things With Wings ~ 1934 -- Centennial Summer ~ 1935 -- The Troop Train ~ 1942 show less