A Long Way From Chicago

A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck
A novel in stories

Fiction, Puffin books 2000, 148 pgs.

Awards- A National Book Award Finalist, Newberry Honor Book

Summary-
This book is the prequel to Peck's novel A Year Down Yonder. It is a novel filled with stories about two children spending the summer with their grandma. This book keeps the audience engaged with humorous stories about all the interesting things Joey and Mary Alice encounter while staying with their grandma in Illinois during countless summers during their childhood. The children are not very excited about going to their "weird and different" grandma's house out in the middle of nowhere. They soon learn grandma is quite a character. She teaches her grandchildren many lessons during the summers, but not in very typical ways. Grandma comes across hard and difficult but really is nothing more than a sweet old grandma that loves her grandchildren. My favorite story in the book is the chapter titled A One-Woman Crime Wave. In this chapter Grandma is taking Joey and Mary Alice fishing. She wakes them up early one morning and tells them to get ready, except they didn't take any fishing rods only a bag of cheese. After walking for a ways, they reach a field with a fence that has a No Trespassing sign on it, Grandma takes the kids right on through the field, paying no attention to the sign. She then leads them to a boat, obviously not hers, but they all hop right in and head down the river. Joey ends up passing out as a big snake is hanging from a limb as they pass by and Mary Alice realizes they aren't really going fishing they are going to get fish from a trap that had been set. She soon realizes that is is illegal and grandma proceeds to tell them it's only illegal if you get caught. Grandma and the children end up running into a group of men on the river, one of which the boat belongs to, and after some fancy talking from grandma they all arrive back at grandma's house safely, with fish to cook for dinner. This was just another average day for grandma, as Joey and Mary Alice would soon learn.

Personal Rating- XXX GOOD
Reading Level- 5.0
Interest Level-4th-7th grade
Possible uses of integration- The novel could be read in a SS class as the setting is in the depression and there are many references to events happening during this time period. Also the student learns some interesting vocabulary words that would be considered slang during that time period. There are a lot of opportunities for writing experiences while reading this novel, such as having the students write a letter to their parents telling them about some of the things they are experiencing at their Grandma Dowdel's house.

Potential Problems- The students would have to be given the some vocabulary words before reading to ensure they would understand, since there are a lot of words used in the book that the students would be unfamiliar with due to the time period that it is set within.It would also be helpful to review what the Great Depression was and other information relating to that time period in history to give the students a better understanding of the setting.