What is A Long Way from Chicago About and Why Should I Care? Southern Illinois might not actually be a long way from Chicago…but we'd take a vacation with Grandma Dowdel over an all-expense-paid cruise through the Caribbean any day of the week. She may not be flashy or sugary sweet, but she takes the kids on plenty of missions to help the poor and desperate…and-oh, yeah-she also steals boats, shoots at cats, and helps her grandkids dress up like ghosts to scare some small-minded townsfolk. The book captures the hilarity that comes with spending time with oddball Grandma Dowdel. A Long Way from Chicago chronicles the week each August (from 1929 to 1935) that Joey and Mary Alice spend grammy-ing it up.Īuthor Richard Peck has written dozens of young adult books, and he brings his experience and awesome prose stylin' to this novel-in-stories (nabbing a Newbery Honor for his efforts).
Grandma Dowdel is kind of like an onion or an ogre in that way-but she's not green, and she doesn't make her grandkids cry.
And she breaks the law when she doesn't think the law is serving the greater good (which-spoiler-is most of the time).Īnd as Joey and Mary Alice spend more time kicking it with their rogue grandma, they continue to uncover layer after layer of eccentricity. In fact, Southern Illinois isn't really even all that far away from Chicago, at least in terms of miles.īut for Joey and Mary Alice Dowdel, who are sent down from their home in Chicago to spend a week hanging at Grandma Dowdel's place, it might as well be as far away and foreign as Mars City, Mars.įor one thing, Grandma Dowdel isn't your average "would-you-like-more-cookies-baby?" type of grammy.
It's not as amazing sounding as a bunch of other places that are a long way from Chicago. Maybe Florida-that's a pretty long way away from the City of Broad Shoulders. When you pick up a book called A Long Way from Chicago, you probably expect it to take place in an exotic, faraway land.
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