A Year Down Yonder
Grandma Dowdel's back! She's just as feisty and terrifying and  goodhearted as she was in Richard Peck'sA Long Way from Chicago, and  every bit as funny. In the first book, a Newbery Honor winner, Grandma's  rampages were seen through the eyes of her grandson Joey, who, with his sister,  Mary Alice, was sent down from Chicago for a week every summer to visit. But now  it's 1937 and Joey has gone off to work for the Civilian Conservation Corps,  while 15-year-old Mary Alice has to go stay with Grandma alone--for a whole  year, maybe longer. From the very first moment when she arrives at the depot  clutching her Philco portable radio and her cat, Bootsie, Mary Alice knows it  won't be easy. And it's not. She has to sleep alone in the attic, attend a hick  town school where in spite of her worn-out coat she's "the rich girl from  Chicago," and be an accomplice in Grandma's outrageous schemes to run the town  her own way--and do good while nobody's looking. But being Grandma's sidekick is  always interesting, and by the end of the year, Mary Alice has grown to see the  formidable love in the heart of her formidable Grandma.Peck is at his best with these hilarious stories that rest solidly within the  American literary tradition of Mark Twain and Bret Harte. Teachers will cherish  them as great read-alouds, and older teens will gain historical perspective from  this lively picture of the depression years in small-town America. (Ages 12 and  older)--Patty Campbell--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.