Hi everyone, welcome to this first week of January!! I hope everyone had a restful break over the festive weeks. My family and I will return to New Zealand in a few day’s time and I hope to share a bit of our adventures together in a post later on. This first week I have a booklist of tween reads which feature inter-generational relationships. I hope you enjoy the titles below!!
These first two are actually part of a series which I hope you find as entertaining as I did!!
In the first story, A long way from Chicago by Richard Peck (Puffin Books, 1998), we are taken into the Depression years when Joey and his sister Mary Alice – two siblings from Chicago – make their annual visit to their Grandma Dowdel’s sleepy Illinois town. Told over nine unforgettable summers, the collection of nine short stories depicts the life and times of rural America during those Depression years. Larger than life Grandma Dowdel, her grandkids Joey and Mary Alice and a whole plethora of unforgettable characters colour these stories vividly. Richard Peck’s unique style of hilarity brings life to them all!! He’s truly a master at capturing the feel of that era and brings everything to glorious technicolour in his vivid description and storytelling!! It’s no wonder that this first instalment was awarded several awards including a Newbery Honor in 1999!
The second story, A Year Down Yonder (Dial Books for Young Readers, 1999) follows into the autumn of 1937. Mary Alice has left Chicago to live with formidable Grandma Dowdel now that her brother Joey has left home. Told in his usual short-story format, this time we follow a teenaged Mary Alice as she navigates school and her ever irrepressible Grandma Dowdel. One of the interesting things in this read was noticing the similarities between young Mary Alice and her grandmother. We also meet a few new characters and some oldies from before. You’ll find some side-splitting hilarious stories in this sequel. I truly enjoyed the way Peck was able to bring this era to life in his unique writing and how he showcased the relationship between the two main characters. This story also won the Newbery Medal in 2001 along with several others.
The third in this series is A Season of Gifts, which unfortunately I couldn’t find a copy of. I hope you have better luck than me!!
My next read is Just like Jackie by Lindsey Stoddard (Harper, 2018) where we meet Robinson and her grandfather. She helps him fix cars in his repair shop and collect sap from the maple trees in their backyard. Now she’s his right hand more than ever, because Grandpa’s memory’s been getting tired lately, and he can forget the simplest things. Robbie’s sure that if she can just stay out of trouble, Grandpa won’t have to worry so much, and his memory can rest and get better. However, when Robbie exchanges blows with Alex Carter, the biggest bully in fifth grade, she’s stuck in group guidance. Young Robbie has to deal with not just being different to her grandfather, but also has to deal with his Alzheimer’s. The descriptions of Vermont’s landscape and life near the Appalachian Trail is really well crafted along with the school scenes. I liked the way Robbie learns to cope with her anger issues and progress among her peers to being a kind and caring person. Robbie’s courage to do anything to protect her family shines through in every page!!
This next one, The Last Grand Adventure by Rebecca Behrens ( Aladdin, 2018) tells a tale of a unique road trip our twelve-year-old protagonist Bea takes with her grandmother. It is 1967 and twelve-year-old Bea is in need of some adventure. Her mother is off in San Francisco, while her father has just gotten remarried in Los Angeles. Bea has gained a younger step-sister, and she’s not thrilled about her blended family. So when her ailing grandmother, Pidge, moves to an Orange County senior-living community and asks if Bea would spend the summer helping her get settled, Bea is happy for any excuse to get away. Turns out Pidge intends on getting on a train instead back to Atchison, Kansas – where she thinks she’ll be reunited with her long-missing sister Ameila Earhart. Despite the craziness behind this idea, Bea is convinced and agrees to be her sidekick on this secret trip. Young Bea is quite a strong and determined young girl and her grandmother ‘Pidge’ is a character all by herself. Their relationship is quirky and interesting. I loved the descriptions of their journey across state lines which I found colourful and vibrant along with the myriad of characters they meet along the way. I liked how Bea had a “worry” journal where she wrote down all the things she had concerns about. Those period details that Behrens has exquisitely crafted along with the language used gives depth and layers to this emotional story. Keep tissues handy folks, it got me quite teary!!
This last read took me all the way down to Australia. From one of Australia’s most renowned children’s authors, The Shop at Hooper’s Bend by Emily Rodda (Angus & Robertson; 2017) is a story about coming home when you didn’t even know that was where you belonged. Quil Medway is on a train headed to another camp for the school holidays. She thinks it will be like the other summers where she spends surrounded by people, but feeling alone. She doesn’t know anything about the shop at Hoopers Bend or a bitter, prickly woman called Bailey. Or a little black and white dog who at this very moment is chewing through a rope so he’ll be free to answer a call that only he can hear. She doesn’t know about the magic. Quil and Bailey make an unlikely pair of inter-generational friends and I loved how Pirate, the little dog, ends up being the other part that keeps them together. An awesome cast of characters make up this story. Although a little bit confusing at first for me, it became somewhat clearer as I read more and learned of the different people who hire the shop. I loved the descriptions of the unique Australian lifestyle and landscape. You could kind of hear the unmistakable twang when Jacko and Powell start conspiring!! This story was poignant and heartwarming. A great read!!
I hope you enjoyed this selection of stories in this week’s booklist! If you have read anything similar I’d love to hear from you!!
Stay safe and keep reading
Miss Mahee
Miss Mahee's Library of Reads 