A Year Down Yonder

A Year Down Yonder	Avon Books
Written by Richard Peck	2000
Historical Fiction	130 pages
Reading Level ages 9-12	Newberry Award

Summary

Mary Alice is sent to live with Grandma Dowdel. She arrives with her radio and her cat, immediately put into school. She has to sit next to the school bully Mildred, who demands money. When Mary Alice arrives home, Grandma Dowdel gives both a glass of milk and bread and quietly let Mildred’s horse loose, leaving her to walk home. Near Halloween there are vandalisms to the outhouses. Grandma Dowdel will have nothing with that. She makes a batch of glue that will stick to anything. They wait up and slip the glue on to the leader in the middle of the night. It turns out to be August Fluke, who looks like a plucked chicken at the Halloween party. When Grandma Dowdel shows up with her pumpkin and pecan pie, she uses his knife as her way to show she found it was him. She gathered the pecans from the ground but there weren’t enough to her satisfaction, so she ran the tractor into the tree for even more to fall. She took the pumpkins from a farmer, justifying they would have some of the pie the pumpkins made. Grandma served the gumbo at the Turkey shoot, having people pay more than others to pay for the host of the event. Her son was a veteran who was gassed in the war. There is a painter who is commissioned by the federal government and Grandma allows him to rent out the attic. Mary Alice has Royce over to do math but also to have a claim before Carleen tried to make her moves. All of the sudden, the postmistress runs from the attic stairs with only a snake covering her. Arnold the painter was using her as a nude model. Grandma Dowdel shot her gun and woke up the town to let everyone on the excitement. At the end of the year, Grandma Dowdel tried to distance herself from Mary Alice to try and make it easier for her to leave. Years later, Mary Alice returns to marry Royce in Grandma’s front room.

Reaction

I enjoyed the book and thought it was a good sequel to A Long Way from Chicago. It was funny and Grandma was the same, but through the long year, we through Mary Alice were able to see a different side of her and the reasons truly behind all her acts that seemed outlandish were actually to help someone else or administer justice when she sees fit.

Potential Problems

Grandma drove a hard bargain when she made the banker pay five dollars for the gumbo to help and ran the tractor into the pecan tree for more pecans. The farmer said she could have those on the ground, so she made more fall on the ground. Her interpretation of the law or social norms is at a different level than those around her.

Recommendations

I would recommend this book to those who loved the first of this series. They would see the town and Grandma from Mary Alice’s view and see more of the everyday routine.