Far from Chicago

Author: Richard Peck
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: This book won the Newbery Honor for Children's Literature in 1999. In the 1930s during the Great Depression in the United States, Joe and his younger sister Mary were sent to live with their grandmother in a rural town each summer while their parents lived in Chicago. This place far from Chicago initially left Joe with an impression of being remote, wild, and primitive. Especially the cold and solitary personality of his grandmother, Dodie, made young Joe feel helpless. As the years passed and Joe visited the town again and again, he witnessed countless unbelievable things that happened there. He realized that beneath the monotonous and desolate surface of the town, there was a yearning for a better life and a spirit of optimism and freedom. At the same time, many virtues of his grandmother gradually became known to Joe. She bravely fought off intruders with a shotgun and became a hero in Joe's heart. But what Joe could never forget forever were the fairy-tale-like log cabin, the river with swaying reeds, the steam-hissing train, the hot corn cakes on the dining table, the cowboy riding a horse, the woman wearing a hat, the dusty market...