A Year Down Yonder and Fair Weather
The depression has struck Mary Alice�s family hard, and she has been sent to spend a year with her Grandma, a rough, giant of a woman. She lives in a house at the end of the road, with no phone or modern conveniences, in a �hick town� in Illinois, far from Chicago.
Although Grandma is unpredictable and unconventional, Mary Alice knows that a �marshmallow heart� lies beneath her rough exterior. As she narrates, the reader peels back the layers of a complex character who stares down the artificial conventions of small-town high society. �The heart of the book is Grandma � huge and overbearing, totally outside polite society.� (Booklist, October 15, 2000) Kirkus Reviews (September 15, 2000) captures the essence of Grandma: �. . . an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who, despite her hard-as-nails exterior, is able to see her granddaughter with �eyes in the back of her heart.��
When announcing the 2001 Newbery Medal winner, the chairman of the Newbery Award Selection Committee, Caroline S. Parr, had the following comment about the book: "Peck's characters are fully realized, from the quiet widow nursing her war-injured son, to Maxine Patch, running out of Grandma's house draped only in the biggest snake outside the Brookfield Zoo. These stories will, like Maxine, streak 'straight into the annals of undying fame.'" (American Library Association)
Fair Weather is another novel by Peck that features a colorful senior citizen, Granddad Fuller. The story is told through the voice of thirteen-year old Rosie Beckett, whose family lives a hardscrabble life on a farm in rural Illinois. Rosie, along with her brother Buster (7), sister Lottie (17), and Granddad Fuller are off to visit Aunty Euterpe in Chicago, who has invited the children to take in the wonders of the 1893 World�s Columbian Exposition. Although Granddad was conspicuously not invited, he shows up on the train, transforming a rather prim excursion into a fun-filled romp. The children�s eyes are opened to their Granddad�s colorful past, and everyone, including Aunty Euterpe, has their lives changed by the great Exposition.
Peck ingeniously weaves fact with fiction in this story, portraying Granddad as an old pal of Wild Bill Cody who the children actually get to meet and talk with. Other historical figures take center stage, as well, including Lillian Russell and Susan B. Anthony. Richard Peck walks this tightrope between fact and fiction fluidly, breathing life into the black and white photographs interspersed throughout the book. �The history of the time is seen through the people and events at the fair � electric lights, the first Ferris wheel, hamburgers, Buffalo Bill Cody, Scott Joplin, Susan B. Anthony, and more.� (School Library Journal, April 1, 2003)
Both books involve families living in Illinois, one from a rural setting and one from the big city of Chicago. In both stories, the children switch settings, having their eyes opened to what life is like �on the other side.� Like the country mouse and the city mouse, the children learn about a way of life very different from their own, while gaining renewed appreciation for their roots. Both books have colorful, influential grandparents, who are at once a source of foot-shuffling and awe to their grandchildren. The children see their grandparents through �new eyes� during the course of the story, cementing warm relationships that span a generation. In Fair Weather, the children form a similar bond with their Aunty Euterpe, a heretofore unknown but imposing figure in their lives.
The journeys the children take in the stories are symbolic of their progress toward adulthood, and the maturity their experiences bring them. In both instances, the children leave their parents behind and find liberating relationships with their grandparents. They are on a quest, essentially, finding respite from their family�s hardships and discovering their own identities, unfettered by parental authority.
The youngsters and oldsters in both books serve as foils to one another. The children�s natural desire to blend in and conform stand in stark contrast to the eccentricity of their grandparents. Aunty Euterpe takes the role of a child around her father, Granddad Fuller, and she is constantly mortified by his outlandish shenanigans. Peck capitalizes on the naturally warm feelings that children have for their grandparents, and instead of looking foolish to their grandchildren, the golden oldies take on heroic, larger-than-life traits.
Richard Peck�s own childhood was spent in Decatur, Illinois, a town somewhere between Chicago and �hick-town.� It later became �Bluff City,� the setting for the books featuring Blossum Culp and Alexander Armsworth. Like the children in the stories, he had a warm relationship with an elderly relative, octegenarian great-uncle Miles Peck, who he resurrected in the character of Alexander Armsworth�s Great-uncle Miles.
Peck grew up in a time when the world was rapidly changing, and he yearned to travel and one day live in a big city, like New York or London. The sense of awe the Bennett children felt as they experienced the wonders of Chicago and the World Exposition originated in Peck�s own childhood flights of fancy.
As a boy, Richard Peck�s mother read to him and made him hungry for books and learning. Always a brilliant student, he won a scholarship to DePauw University, earned an M.A. from Southern Illinois University, and also studied at Washington University and the University of Exeter in England. It was teaching English to middle school students where he received his inspiration for writing: �It was teaching that made a writer out of me. I found my future readers right there in the roll book.� (Penguin Group)
Peck is the champion of nonconformists in his books, a trait that he values in young people. �In all my novels, you have to declare your independence from your peers before you can take that first real step toward yourself. As a teacher, I�d noticed that nobody ever grows up in a group.�(Penguin Group) He grew up in a family where nonconformity was the norm, with a father who �roared away every morning in green coveralls astride a Harley-Davidson.� (H.W. Wilson)
Historical fiction is a favorite genre for Peck, and reflects his own fascination with history. He wrote a column for the New York Times on architecture of historic neighborhoods and also served as lecturer for around-the-world cruises. He travels approximately 70,000 miles every year, meeting and talking to young people.
Richard Peck has a rare gift in his ability to write humor in spare, descriptive, colorful prose, evoking hysterical mental images and fabricating ludicrous, but believable, scenarios. With a style akin to Mark Twain and Garrison Keilor, Peck brilliantly captures the local color and dialect of his characters and settings. Mark Twain was his favorite childhood author, and he credits him with much of the inspiration for his writing: "I wrote these books because I read Mark Twain when I was impressionable." (Johnson)
Few writers can match Peck's talent for writing laugh-out-loud knee-slappers. Kirkus Reviews (September 15, 2000) described A Year Down Yonder as �original and wildly funny.� Publishers Weekly (July 23, 2001), in a review of Fair Weather, wrote: �Peck�s unforgettable characters, cunning dialogue and fast-paced action will keep readers of all ages in stitches as he captures a colorful chapter in American history.�
Although there are many contemporary issues that face young people, Peck chooses to write about the timeless ones. After becoming frustrated with teaching, he decided to pursue writing as another �arena for communicating with the young.� (H. W. Wilson) Since then, he has become one of the most respected authors for young readers, and his name consistently appears on lists of top authors for children.
In 1990, Peck received the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors an author�s body of work. His books have also won the Newbery Medal, Edgar Award, and National Book Award, and are listed as ALA Notable Books and ALA Best Books for Young Adults. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush in 2001. Fulfilling a chidhood dream, Richard Peck now makes his home in New York City.
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American Library Association. 2001. Newbery Medal home page. Available from http://herrickses.org/denton/library/year%20down%20yonder%202.htm. Accessed 25 September 2004.
Books in Print [database online]. Available from http://www.booksinprint.com. Accessed 24 September 2004.
Carol Otis Hurst�s Consultants. 2004. Featured author: Richard Peck. Available from http://ww.carolhurst.com/authors/rpeck.html. Accessed 24 September 2004.
Carol Otis Hurst�s Consultants. 2004. Newbery and Caldecott winners. Available from http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/newberycaldecott00.html. Accessed 24 September 2004.
H. W. Wilson. 2004. Educational Paperback Association�s Top 100 Authors: Richard Peck. Available from http://www.edupaperback.org/showauth.cfm?authid=68. Accessed 24 September 2004.
Johnson, Nancy J., and Cyndi Giorgis. 2001. 2001 Newbery Medal winner: A conversation with Richard Peck. Reading Teacher 55 (4): 392-397. In EBSCOHost [database online]. Available from http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url,uid&db=aph&an=5596925. Accessed 06 October 2004.
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2004. Authors: Richard Peck. Available from
http://www.penguinputnam.com/Author/AuthorFrame?0000020017. Accessed 24 September 2004.
University of Southern Mississippi de Grummond Collection. 2004. Richard Peck papers. Available from
http://www.lib.usm.edu/%7Edegrum/html/research/findaids/peck.htm#bio. Accessed 24 September 2004.
School of Library and Information Studies
TEXAS WOMAN'S UNIVERSITY