Author: Richard Peck
Publisher: Puffin Books, The Penguin Group 2004
Genre: Historical Fiction (Early 1900s)
Awards: Best Historical Fiction Book For Children 2004 (Disney Adventure Magazine)
Peck: Often referred to as America's best living author for Young Adult Literature.
He was the 2001 recipient of the Newbery Medal ALA for "Down Yonder".
He was the 2002 winner of the Chicag0 Tribune Prize for young adult fiction.
He was awarded the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award in 1990 for his legendary body of work.
Peck was was awarded the National Humanities Medal by George W. Bush
He is the only children's book author to recieve this honor.
Plot Summary:
Times were more relaxed, children were relatively innocent and everyone took pleasure in enjoying the simple things in life. This was the way of life in rural Indiana just after the turn of the 20th Century. Russell, a fifteen year old itching to fulfill his dream of ditching school and heading off to the Dakotas to join a wheat threshing crew is the protagonist narrator, who guides the reader on an enjoyable and humorous journey back in time.
When their teacher Miss Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies", as Russell so eloquently puts it, he and his younger brother are thrilled beyond belief, as she passes on in August, just before the start of the new school year. Russell and Lloyd are hopeful that the school board will just close their one room schoolhouse in Montezuma, Indiana and leave them off the hook. No.... such.... luck! Things went from yeee-haww and awesome to positively awful for the brothers, as the board named their big sister seventeen year old Tansy to replace old Miss Myrt Arbuckle. Greatly enjoyable adventures are had by the family and neighbors, despite the enduring pain of Russell, Lloyd and the rest of the community's children as Tansy learns the ropes of teaching and "takes control" of the odd-ball kindergarten-adult student body.
As it turns out, Tansy becomes certified as a teacher by the state and the students receive a not-so-typical, but quality education. The fun of this book is the old time nomenclatures, the countrified humorous sayings and the interactions of the odd, small town community members, on their farms and in the schoolhouse. Historical references are abundant. Educational tid-bits such as: female teachers had to give up teaching positions upon getting married in the early 1900s, and the first automobile/horse and buggy entanglements occurred around 1904 in rural Indiana, are found throughout this novel.
My Reaction:
I highly recommend this book. It is lighthearted, very humorous, entertaining, educational and an easy read. It is compelling in that I found myself constantly wondering what was going to happen next. The plot was not at all predictable and the character development by Richard Peck was brilliant. You will get a good, wholesome feeling reading this book and you will laugh, despite the unthinkable title, from our perspective.
My Recommendation:
I would gladly recommend this book to any student in grades 5-12. It is easy to read, yet it is interesting from many perspectives. Older, more accomplished readers may get bored as their are lulls in the plot at times. But more sophisticated readers will recognize the historical significance of the details provided in those so called lulls. All readers will appreciate the humor and the adventures of the characters.
Book Talk Hook:
Have you ever thought of school in a one room schoolhouse where all of the grades were taught together? Better yet, have you ever wished that something would happened to your teacher or your school, right before a new year started, so that you might not have to go? This is exactly what happened to Russell and his brother in Indiana in 1904. Find out if they ever had to go to school again. Would that be a good or a bad thing for you and why?
