A Year Down Yonder
 Richard Peck
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2000 Dial Books for Young Readers
  ISBN: 0803725183


When Mary Alice was a kid, she visited her Grandma Dowdel each summer in a little southern Illinois town & her days were packed with surprises & memories. Now she's fifteen, the Depression of the 1930s has hit her family hard & she's facing a whole year alone in her grandmother's company.

I had not read anything by Richard Peck before &, as you can see below, this is one prolific author! Well, I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Alice's adventures in A Year Down Yonder!

Here is a girl on the brink of adulthood whose family is splitting up so they can survive The Depression. She must leave her brother, mother & father & go stay for a whole year with her Grandma who is well known for shaking up the locals.

Grandma Dowdel is a huge woman without an ounce of sentimentality. She keeps a loaded ancient rifle behind her front door, has a magical way of making money, a surefire way of dealing with Trick or Treaters & a snake in her attic!

Mary Alice is no shrinking violet yet when she clashes with the biggest girl in her class, it is her grandmother who shows her how to get the better of a bully!

Written in the voice of this exasperated & quickwitted youngster, A Year Down Yonder is fast, funny & touching. Mary Alice learns a lot about relationships, loyalty & living well when times are hard. She also meets the boy who will, in time, become her husband.

I do recommend A Year Down Yonder -- it has an authentic feel & a fascinating glimpse of a time long ago. Very well done! Now I'm off to find his other books.

More from Richard Peck: A Long Way from Chicago; Don't Look and It Won't Hurt; Dreamland Lake; Through a Brief Darkness; Amanda/Miranda; Strays Like Us; The Great Interactive Dream Machine; Lost in Cyberspace; The Last Safe Place on Earth; Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats; Unfinished Portrait of Jessica; Voices After Midnight; Those Summer Girls I Never Met; Princess Ashley; Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death; Close Enough to Touch; Secrets of the Shopping Mall; Father Figure; Ghosts I Have Been; Are You in the House Alone?; Representing Super Doll.
(01/20/02)

Rebecca