A Long Way from Chicago

It's in Grandma's character profile to spin yarns and stretch the truth. This is a little wicked pleasure she indulges in whenever possible, partly to test people's gullibility and reaction to her...

In A Long Way from Chicago, Rupert Pennypacker is supposedly the "best home-baker in the state of Illinois." Along with Grandma Dowdel, Rupert enters a gooseberry pie for the Fruit Pies and...

In the story, the four Cowgill brothers are the sons of Mr. Cowgill, the dairy farmer. Although we don't know the names of the oldest three boys, we are provided the name of the youngest: Ernie...

A prominent problem at the beginning of A Long Way from Chicago is that neither child really knows, understands, appreciates, or even wants to be with their Grandma Dowdel. They see their grandma...

Mrs. L.J. Weidenbach, the banker's wife, is a neighbor of Grandma Dowdel. She is a pompous lady, and each time she appears in the narrative, Grandma shrewdly tries to turn her lofty attitude to...

Grandma Dowdel went to all the trouble for Shotgun's wake and funeral presumably for two reasons. First, she resented the intrusion of outsiders into town affairs, and the reporter's seemingly...

In Chapter Two, Effie Wilcox has to use Grandma's privy because her own has been destroyed by the Cowgill brothers. Accordingly, the morning after the Cowgill brothers blow up Grandma's mailbox,...

The story is a series of vignettes, each with its own small problem that needs to be solved depending on what is happening in the town that summer. But there are a couple of overarching conflicts...

Effie Wilcox is a local gossip and friends with Grandma Dowdel. When Mary Alice and Joey are telling Grandma Dowdel about gossip they've heard, they say they heard it from a "humped-over lady with...

In A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck siblings Joey and Mary Alice take the Wabash Railroad Crack Blue Bird train to visit their grandmother, the very eccentric Grandma Dowdel, in the country...

Traditionally, People "sat up with a corpse through the final night before burial". Grandma is a formidable figure, however, and since Shotgun's body is on display in her living room, most of the...

Grandma Dowdel is a bit of a loose cannon, isn't she? I hope you're enjoying this book. It's one of my favorites! Grandma Dowdel is one of the most enjoyable (and ornery!) characters in adolescent...

I don't believe the town where Grandma Dowdell lives is actually named in the book. Joey describes going to her home on the train, "the Wabash Railroad's crack Blue Bird that left Dearborn Station...

Joey had been sitting "wedged in a corner, beginning to doze" at Shotgun Cheatham's wake when the commotion began. The gauze that hung down over the open coffin lid inexplicably began to move....

When Shotgun's open coffin is on display in Grandma's house, there is "a heavy" white gauze hanging from the open coffin lid. A gauze is semi-transparent material, made of silk, linen or cotton....

Grandma claims that the ghost of the brakeman still haunts the scene of his death years after his demise. According to Grandma, the brakeman died in 1871 when a train full of firefighters collided...

The incident about which you are asking actually occurs in the second chapter, entitled "The Mouse in the Milk." Grandma Dowdel's mailbox is "blown to smithereens" by a cherry bomb. It had been a...

In the section of A Long Way from Chicago titled "The Day of Judgement," the joke is on Grandma Dowdel, because if she had not resorted to such a desperate measure as cheating at the county fair,...

In the book, the women are upset that President Roosevelt's wife is plain-looking and that he is related to his wife (Eleanor is the president's fifth cousin). One summer's day, Joey and Mary Alice...

There are actually three main characters in the story. Mary Alice and Joey Dowdel visit their Grandma Dowdel every summer, and the book is a coming-of-age story for the grandchildren. Each new...

Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs don't want their son to marry Vandelia Eubanks because they feel that the Eubanks family is socially inferior to their own; additionally, they also fear that Vandelia's mother...

From McDowell's narration, we realize that Mary Alice is a strong and charismatic young lady. Although she is only seven years old at the time, her character is displayed as a person with an...

Mary Alice is the younger sister of the narrator of the story, Joey McDowdell. She accompanies Joey on their yearly visits to their eccentric grandmother each summer, and, despite her age, is a...

“The Phantom Brakeman—1933,” chapter 5 of A Long Way from Chicago, has many of the same main characters as the rest of the novel. The protagonists are Joe and Mary Alice Dowdel, who are spending...

Grandma catches catfish with the cheese. Grandma catches the catfish in traps, which are actually illegal in Illinois. Nonetheless, she has a series of traps set at various places along Salt...

After numerous visits to her grandmother's rural southern Illinois home, Mary Alice becomes conspiratorial in her relationship with members of the local community. When Mary Alice and her brother...

A Long Way from Chicago chronicles the adventures of two siblings and their Grandma Dowdel. Joey and Mary Alice, the city kids, are not pleased to spend their summers in Grandma's small town. They...

Mr. and Mrs. Stubbs are not very happy that their son Junior appears to have lost his mind over Vandalia Eubanks. They strongly disapprove of the relationship, which they blame on Vandalia rather...

In the book, Grandma Dowdel doesn't bother to hide her disdain for city reporters. She thinks they are often self-important and view country people as "a bunch of hayseeds." A hayseed is an...

Grandma Dowdel's small town is getting ready to celebrate its centenary, or hundredth anniversary. As one can imagine, this is quite a big deal, and lots of people are excited about such an...

When Shotgun is buried, a layer of gauze is attached to the outside of the open lid down the front of the coffin to provide a veil. He had not been very fresh when his body was discovered. A...

Often when we are questioned about an antagonist in a story or novel we want to know which character is the antagonist. In "A Long Way From Chicago," the antagonist isn't a person, or...

The Coffee Pot Café is a place where local people come to hang out and engage in gossip. Grandma Dowdel, however, isn't one of them. She likes to keep herself to herself, which is all but...

You're thinking of a corn crib. A cob house is an ancient form of dwelling made of clay, sand, and straw. I've pasted below some links to web sites where you can see pictures and read more about...

In the novel "A Long Way from Chicago," Joey and Mary Alice make the train trip to a small town every summer, in August, for seven years, for a week's visit with Grandma Dowdel. The Depression era...

Several examples of onomatopoeia can be found in the novel, A Long Way from Chicago, by Richard Peck. An onomatopoeia is when a word sounds like what it is. For example, on page 7, in the...

Grandma Dowdel, a central character in Richard Peck's novel A Long Way From Chicago, is an ally of the poor, especially against antagonism from rich people and the law. Mrs. Weidenbach is the...

The term Centennial indicates a hundred, so it would make sense that the Centennial Celebration is a celebration to commemorate a hundred years. The billboard announcing the event says, "Welcome...

The Great Depression might have influenced the lives of the characters in a number of ways. One way is in the living conditions of the people in the little Illinois town where Grandma Dowdel lives....

It's August, which is traditionally a very slow time for news. It's what is known in the United Kingdom as “the silly season” because newspapers inevitably pad out their publications with trivial...

Grandma says that sixteen-year old Ernie Cowgill is still in the fourth grade. Grandma has a propensity to exaggerate, so whether the hapless Ernie Cowgill is really still in the fourth grade or...

In the story, Grandma Dowdel gets away with lying by using her age and life experience to her advantage. Throughout the book, Grandma often uses white lies to maneuver her way around difficulties....

Joey and Mary Alice are up in their grandma's attic looking for old clothes that they can wear to the Centennial Celebration. Everyone needs to dress up in historical clothing in order to look the...

I'm going to correct my earlier answer. Please accept my apologies; the lack of capitalization in "terrplane" confused me. That occurs on page 104 of my version of the book, and is stated clearly.

The first piece of historical context referenced in chapter 3 ("A One-Woman Crime Wave") is the Great Depression. The chapter takes place in 1931, approximately two years after the stock market...

The cover of Richard Peck's novel A Long Way From Chicago shows a boy with a man in plane and an older woman holding the hand of a young girl under the flying plane. One can easily assume that the...