A YEAR DOWN YONDER
by Richard Peck
Dial Books
ISBN: 0803725183
Ages 10-up

In this sequel to A LONG WAY FROM CHICAGO (A Newbery Honor Book in 1999), set during the Great Depression, 15-year-old Mary Alice leaves her Chicago home to spend a year with her feisty --- and often funny --- Grandma Dowdel in Grandma's small Illinois town. As the connected stories in this book unfold, Mary Alice comes to see the warm and loving side of her eccentric relative, and readers meet a cast of characters they won't soon forget.

   --- Reviewed by Shannon Maughan

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