RICHARD PECK (1934-2018) was born in Decatur, Illinois and lived
in New York City for nearly 50 years. The acclaimed author of 35
novels for children and young adults, he won the Newbery Medal
for A Year Down Yonder, a Newbery Honor for A Long Way
from Chicago, the Scott O’Dell Award for The River Between Us,
the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Are You in the House Alone?,
a Boston Globe-Horn BookAward Honor for The Best Man, and
the Christopher Medal for The Teacher’s Funeral. He was the
first children’s author ever to have been awarded a National
Humanities Medal, and was twice a National Book Award
Finalist.
“Peck is in his element here. [S]o vivid is the telling of every event, conversation, and emotion. Best of all, the dry wit and unpretentious tone make the story’s events comical, its characters memorable, and its conclusion unexpectedly moving.”—Booklist, starred review
Gr 6 Up-C'mon back to rural Indiana in 1904 and join 15-year-old Russell, whose summer ends with the unexpected death of old Miss Myrt Arbuckle. Russell and his younger brother are thrilled because just maybe the school board will decide to stop its foolishness and tear down the one-room schoolhouse. Surely it doesn't pay to hire a new teacher for the six students who attend. But to his utter horror, one is hired and it's none other than his extremely bossy older sister, even though she still has a year left of high school herself. Tansy takes to teaching with vigor and manages to circumvent all of the high jinx and calamities that threaten to undermine her authority, such as an accidental fire in the privy and a puff adder in her desk drawer. Peck expertly evokes humor and colloquial speech and mores with such sentences as "The water wasn't crotch-deep on a dwarf at that point," and "She had a snout on her long enough to drink water down a crawdad hole." Even readers who are blas? about current technological advances will be as excited as Russell is when he sees the steel Case Agitator threshing machine down from Wisconsin on its once-yearly exhibit, or the Overland Automobile Company's Bullet No. 2 racing car that can travel a mile in an unheard-of 43 seconds. Another gem from Peck-and a fabulous lead-in to titles such as Olive Burns's Cold Sassy Tree (Houghton, 1984).-Susan Riley, Mount Kisco Public Library, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
"Peck is in his element here. [S]o vivid is the telling of every event, conversation, and emotion. Best of all, the dry wit and unpretentious tone make the story's events comical, its characters memorable, and its conclusion unexpectedly moving."-Booklist, starred review
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