A Long Way from Chicago: a Novel in Stories
By Matt Berman,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
A hilarious look at summer in the country.
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Based on 1 parent review
Heartwarming, funny for kids 8 and up along with their parents
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What's the Story?
In a series of related short stories, siblings Joey and Mary Alice from Chicago spend a week each summer with their eccentric grandmother in small-town Illinois during the Depression. She convinces a nosy reporter that a dead old reprobate was really a Civil War hero, gets local delinquent bullies the comeuppance they deserve, outwits the local sheriff to help poor drifters, helps a young couple to elope, and arranges for her oldest adversary to keep her house when the bank wants to repossess it.
Is It Any Good?
Richard Peck's comedy is his best since Bel Air Bambi and the Mall Rats. Filled with the kind of detail that can only come from memory, the book is blessed by Grandma Dowdel, a true original. Sharp-tongued and peppery, like so many of Peck's central characters, she reveals her heart to her grandchildren through action, not mawkish blather.
In a succession of summers she outwits the press, local hooligans, and the sheriff, all for the benefit of the town and its residents, whom she appears to despise. Her clever, no-nonsense approach to problems is wicked and original, though often mystifying to her grandchildren, and Peck's perfect blend of outrageous humor and unsentimental warmth make this a true rarity in comic novels -- one that is at once richly funny, memorable, and deeply satisfying.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the historical realities of the Great Depression and what it must have been like to be a young person during that time. If you had grown up in the 1930s, where would you have preferred to live -- in Chicago or in rural Illinois? What are some of the ways in which life would have been different in the big city vs. the country?
Book Details
- Author: Richard Peck
- Genre: Humor
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Dial Books
- Publication date: September 1, 1998
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 9 - 12
- Number of pages: 148
- Last updated: July 12, 2017
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