A Long Way from Chicago: A Novel in Stories (Puffin Classics) (Paperback)
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品牌: Richard Peck
基本信息·出版社：Puffin Books
·页码：160 页
·出版日期：2004年
·ISBN：0142401102
·条形码：9780142401101
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
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内容简介Joey and his little sister are not too excited about their first visit to Grandma Dowdell in smalltown Illinois. She's an old lady - how can she possibly entertain them for a whole week! But from the moment they step off the train from Chicago, they know they had Grandma all wrong. What follows, over seven annual visits , is a hilarious and often touching account of a childhood spent with a larger than life grandmother. If she isn't holding her nasty neighbours at gunpoint, or catching the local sherriff in his underwear, Grandma Dowdell is doing a spot of poaching or cooking up a storm in her kitchen. Joey and Mary Alice observe all, and learn a thing or two about themselves in the process . . .
Narrated by Joey, this is an unmissable novel - to be read and loved for years to come.--This text refers to thePaperbackedition.
作者简介Richard Peck has written more than 20 novels for young people. His numerous awards include the New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year and Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery. A Long Way From Chicago was shortlisted for the US National Book Awards, and was awarded the coveted Newbery Honor Medal (US equivalent of the Carnegie Medal) for 1999. Its sequel, A Year Down Yonder, publishes in September 2000.--This text refers to thePaperbackedition.
编辑推荐From Publishers Weekly
Peck (Strays Like Us) first created the inimitable central figure of this novel in a previously published short story. Although the narrator, Joey, and his younger sister, Mary Alice, live in the Windy city during the reign of Al Capone and Bugs Moran, most of their adventures occur "a long way from Chicago," during their annual down-state visits with Grandma Dowdel. A woman as "old as the hills," "tough as an old boot," and larger than life ("We could hardly see her town because of Grandma. She was so big, and the town was so small"), Grandma continually astounds her citified grandchildren by stretching the boundaries of truth. In eight hilarious episodes spanning the years 1929-1942, she plots outlandish schemes to even the score with various colorful members of her community, including a teenaged vandal, a drunken sheriff and a well-to-do banker. Readers will be eager to join the trio of Grandma, Joey and Mary Alice on such escapades as preparing an impressive funeral for Shotgun Cheatham, catching fish from a stolen boat and arranging the elopement of Vandalia Eubanks and Junior Stubbs. Like Grandma Dowdel's prize-winning gooseberry pie, this satire on small-town etiquette is fresh, warm and anything but ordinary. Ages 9-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
From School Library Journal
Grade 4-8-A rollicking celebration of an eccentric grandmother and childhood memories. Set in the 1930s, the book follows Joe and Mary Alice Dowdel as they make their annual August trek to visit their grandmother who lives in a sleepy Illinois town somewhere between Chicago and St. Louis. A woman with plenty of moxie, she keeps to herself, a difficult task in this small community. However, Grandma Dowdel uses her wit and ability to tell whoppers to get the best of manipulative people or those who put on airs. She takes matters into her own hands to intimidate a father who won't control his unruly sons, and forces the bank to rescind a foreclosure on an elderly woman's house. Whether it's scaring a pretentious newspaper man back to the city or stealing the sheriff's boat and sailing right past him as he drunkenly dances with his buddies at the Rod & Gun Club, she never ceases to amaze her grandchildren with her gall and cunning behavior. Each chapter resembles a concise short story. Peck's conversational style has a true storyteller's wit, humor, and rhythm. Joe, the narrator, is an adult looking back on his childhood memories; in the prologue, readers are reminded that while these tales may seem unbelievable, "all memories are true." Perfect for reading aloud, A Long Way from Chicago is a great choice for family sharing.
Shawn Brommer, Southern Tier Library System, Painted Post, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
FromBooklist
Gr. 6^-10. Grandma Dowdel is not a good influence--and that's one good reason why Joey likes visiting her. Each August, from 1929 (when Joey is nine) to 1935, he and his younger sister travel by train from Al Capone's Chicago to spend a week with Grandma in her scrappy small Illinois town. In seven short stories, one for each summer, Grandma lies, cheats, trespasses, and contrives to help the town underdogs (including her own worst enemy) outwit the banker, the Holy Rollers, and the establishment. Part vaudeville act, part laconic tall tale, the stories, with their dirty tricks and cunning plots, make you laugh out loud at the farce and snicker at the reversals. Like Grandma, the characters are larger-than-life funny, yet Peck is neither condescending nor picturesque. With the tall talk, irony, insult, and vulgarity, there's also a heartfelt sense of the Depression's time and place, when a knot of people wait outside the store for the day-old bread to become half price, and Grandma defies the sheriff, poaches catfish, and fries it up to feed the Depression drifters with her home-brewed beer ("They didn't thank her. She wasn't looking for thanks"). The viewpoint is adult--elderly Joe is looking back now at the changes he saw in those seven years--but many young people will recognize the irreverent, contrary voices of their own family legends across generations. The first story, "Shotgun Cheatham's First Night above Ground," appeared in the anthologyTwelve Shots:Stories about Guns(1997), edited by Harry Mazer.Hazel Rochman--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
From Kirkus Reviews
In a novel that skillfully captures the nuances of small-town life, an elderly man reminisces about his annual trips from Chicago to his grandmother's house in rural Illinois during the Depression. When the book opens, Joey and his sister, Mary Alice, nine and seven, respectively, learn that they will be spending a week every August with Grandma Dowdel. In eight vignettes, one for each summer from 1929 - 1935, with the final story set when Joey's troop train passes through in 1942, Peck (Strays Like Us, 1998) weaves a wry tale that ranges from humorous to poignant. Grandma Dowdel, with her gruff persona and pragmatic outlook on life, embodies not only the heart of a small town but the spirit of an era gone by. She turns the tables on a supercilious reporter from the big city, bests the local sheriff, feeds the drifters of the Depression, inspires a brawl between elderly (ancient) war heroes, and more. Peck deftly captures the feel of the times, from the sublime bliss of rooting around the ice bin at the local store for a nickel Nehi during the dog days of summer, to a thrilling flight in a biplane. Remarkable and fine. (Fiction. 9-12) --Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.
Review
A rollicking celebration of an eccentric grandmother and childhood memories. --School Library Journal, starred review
Review
A rollicking celebration of an eccentric grandmother and childhood memories. (School Library Journal, starred review)
