36. A Year Down Yonder

Title: A Year Down Yonder
Author: Richard Peck
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers
Copyright Date: 2000
Number of Pages: 130
Reading Level: 10+
Genre: Fiction

Summary
Mary Alice has to leave home to go live with her Grandma Dowdel because her family can’t afford to keep her. She arrives on a train in hick town and Grandma Dowdel picks her up. They walk straight to the school. Mary Alice is mortified when she is sat next to the school bully, Mildred Burdick. Mildred insists that Mary Alice owes her a dollar so she follows her home to get it. Grandma Dowdel makes Mildred take off her boots and says to come in the house to “discuss” the dollar. Grandma Dowdel gives Mildred some buttermilk. Grandma asks about Mildred’s family and steps out to get her some jam to take home. Grandma comes back in empty handed and tell Mildred that she better get going, it’s going to be a long walk home. Mildred runs out the door and sees her boots are gone and her horse was let loose. Mildred takes off running. On another occasion, Halloween, Grandma sets up a trap for a bunch of boys who’ve been tipping and destroying everyone’s privies. Grandma makes up a paste and pours it over one of the boys heads and takes his knife. Later Grandma uses the knife to cut a piece of pie for that boy. His dad grabs him and says he took on the wrong privy. Grandma Dowdel also has her own way of getting around a bargain. Old Man Nyquist said that Grandma could have all the pecans that had fallen on the ground below his tree. One night Grandma and Mary Alice sneak into his yard and Grandma gets on his tractor and drives it into the tree. All the pecans come tumbling down and so she didn’t pick any straight from the tree. Mary Alice starts to think like Grandma when Valentines rolls around and she makes three valentines for Ina-Rae. This makes Carleen angry because she didn’t get any extra valentines and didn’t get one especially from Royce McNabb. When its time for Mary Alice to go Grandma Dowdel tries not to look like it matters to her but we know it does. Mary Alice comes back a couple years (?) later and marries that Royce McNabb right in Grandma Dowdel’s front room.

Recommendation
I would recommend this to girls and boys. I think that Grandma Dowdel is such a loveable character that anybody would get a kick out of this book. I think kids that don’t have a “normal” home would enjoy this book because their situations can often prove to be hard and Mary Alice learns to love her grandma even though she doesn’t always understand why she does things.

Problems/Conflict
Grandma Dowdel does steal, although she has her own way of repaying those that she steals from.

My Reaction
What a hilarious book! I want to read the first one now really bad. This book has the grandma that everyone wishes they had and the people who have one probably won’t appreciate until their older. What a tough lady who comes off as the do it all kind of woman who doesn’t need anybody but herself. I am in love with the relationship that Mary Alice and Grandma Dowdel have at the end of the book.