A Long Way from Chicago

For those who grew up in storytelling families, there's nothing more comforting than a voice settling in to tell a family tale. A LONG WAY FROM CHICAGO will put you in mind of storytelling afternoons on the front porch. Peck's Newbery Honor title fairly begged to be recorded, for it's the seven episodic chapters--one for each summer that Joey and Mary Alice visit their gun-totin' Grandma Dowdel in her Illinois town--that make the book memorable. Ron McLarty adopts the perfect unruffled tone as he relates the series of outrageous tales, all taking place from 1929 to 1935 and starring the gruff and grumble Grandma Dowdel and her two Chicago grandchildren. A cast of small-town characters--eccentric, pompous, or unpretentious in turn--complements the story. A gem! T.B. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine


Are all my memories true? Every word. And growing truer with the years. Joey Dowdel reminisces about the weeks from summers past that he and his sister spent at their Grandma Dowdel's house. Chicago during the gangster years provides the backdrop and counterpoint for a series of adventures in which Grandma emerges "larger than life." Richard Peck's Newbery Honor book is full of assertive characters, exaggeration, understatement, and strong family attachments. Ron McLarty shares his delight in the emergence of Grandma as mastermind and keen judge of character through his skillful development of each summer's episode. Pace, intonation, and emotion are those of an engaged storyteller. Vivid supporting characters also make this performance is rich and full. Be prepared for tears of mirth and tears of compassion. A.R. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

August 31, 1998
Peck (Strays Like Us) first created the inimitable central figure of this novel in a previously published short story. Although the narrator, Joey, and his younger sister, Mary Alice, live in the Windy city during the reign of Al Capone and Bugs Moran, most of their adventures occur "a long way from Chicago," during their annual down-state visits with Grandma Dowdel. A woman as "old as the hills," "tough as an old boot," and larger than life ("We could hardly see her town because of Grandma. She was so big, and the town was so small"), Grandma continually astounds her citified grandchildren by stretching the boundaries of truth. In eight hilarious episodes spanning the years 1929-1942, she plots outlandish schemes to even the score with various colorful members of her community, including a teenaged vandal, a drunken sheriff and a well-to-do banker. Readers will be eager to join the trio of Grandma, Joey and Mary Alice on such escapades as preparing an impressive funeral for Shotgun Cheatham, catching fish from a stolen boat and arranging the elopement of Vandalia Eubanks and Junior Stubbs. Like Grandma Dowdel's prize-winning gooseberry pie, this satire on small-town etiquette is fresh, warm and anything but ordinary. Ages 9-12.