A Year Down Yonder

By Richard Peck

Review By Nellie

If your parents were low on money and you had to go live with your frightening grandmother, would you be happy? What if you had to steal every little thing in order to make food? Each person that passes you with your grandma runs at the sight, because of her face and attitude. Lousy isn’t it?

Living like this isn’t glorious, but necessary and a new adventure for Mary Alice in Richard Peck’s Newberry Award Winner, A Year Down Yonder.

Throughout the book, Mary Alice and her Grandma Dowdel face adventures at school events, community affairs, and home with many other acquaintances. They find themselves making pies from stolen ingredients, trapping trespassers, and loving each other more than ever before.

With Halloween less than a week away, Grandma Dowdel knew that the sneaks were coming around soon to destroy all the privies in town. With her knowledge of that, she set up wire traps around the border of her lawn. As the boys entered her property, or tried to, all of them tumbled over the wire and ran off without even touching the privy. Grandma Dowdel had figured them out!

Though when Mary Alice first went to be with her grandma she was upset and mad, as she started to learn more about her Grandma Dowdel she became to realize that it wasn’t that bad. Once every thing was okay at home, Mary Alice wasn’t sure whether or not to leave her all time favorite person, Grandma Dowdel.

A fun fiction story is what you get out of this book. Living along with Mary Alice, you get a sense of a good relationship in families and love. Grandma Dowdel has many lessons for you to learn in A Year Down Yonder.