Fifteen-year-old Mary Alice has never felt entirely comfortable around her eccentric Grandma Dowdel, and she feels even less comfortable in the small town Grandma Dowdel calls home. But when Mary Alice must spend all of 1937 living there, she finds she can adjust by taking a cue from her hard-working, scrappy grandmother. Each chapter introduces an engaging episode in Mary Alice’s life with her Grandma: she watches Grandma get even with Halloween pranksters, gets the lead role in the Christmas program at school, and helps Grandma begrudgingly host a meeting of the DAR. Peck’s judicious use of hyperbole and exaggeration, both in the narrative and in the dialogue, gives the novel the feeling of an American tall tale, but he doesn't overdo it, so the characters and place feel real in this sequel to A Long Way from Chicago (Dial, 1998). (Age 12 and older)

A Newbery Medal Winner

Richard Peck's Newbery Medal-winning sequel to A Long Way from Chicago

Mary Alice's childhood summers in Grandma Dowdel's sleepy Illinois town were packed with enough drama to fill the double bill of any picture show. But now she is fifteen, and faces a whole long year with Grandma, a woman well known for shaking up her neighbors-and everyone else! All Mary Alice can know for certain is this: when trying to predict how life with Grandma might turn out . . . better not. This wry, delightful sequel to the Newbery Honor Book A Long Way from Chicago has already taken its place among the classics of children's literature.

"Hilarious and poignant." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

A Newbery Medal Winner
A New York Times Bestseller
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Booklist Best Book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year