A Year Down Under--by Richard Peck

A Year Down Under by Richard Peck ISBN# 0-14-230070-5

This book, which is a 2001 Newberry Winner, does not disappoint. Fifteen-year-old Mary Alice was living in Chicago when the Great Depression finally got to her family. With no place to live or money to raise her, her parents ship her off to a Grandmother in rural Illinois. This woman just isn’t any Grandmother; she is Grandma Dowdle, feared by most people in town. But it isn’t that simple. She is feared because she won’t take any stuff from anyone. This leads to many embarrassing situations for Mary Alice, but through these situations (most of them very humorous) Mary Alice discovers that Grandma Dowdle is a strong woman. Her strange habits such as wearing men’s clothes and chewing a toothpick whenever she is awake had to her foreboding image.

What Mary Alice learns is that her Grandma, in her strange ways, always cuts to the truth. By the end of the year, Mary Alice has a huge amount of respect for her Grandma.

Richard Peck’s characters are well developed. It is almost like they are in the room with you. The book moved along quickly, because I couldn’t wait to see what outrageous thing Grandma Dowdle would do next. This is a very enjoyable book and highly recommended to the upper end of the tween age range