A Season of Gifts (audio) by Richard Peck

Grandma Dowdel from the A Long Way From Chicago and A Year Down Yonder is back!  In A Season of Gifts, she had new neighbors including the ten-year son of the new preacher.  Told from his point of view, Bob watches as Grandma Dowdel helps the town folk without looking like she is doing anything.

I always enjoy Richard Peck's books.  They are so simple and folksy and Grandma Dowdel is an unforgettable character.  I was glad to see another book with her in it.  She gets older but never changes.  By befriending the new family next door (even though she doesn't "neighbor") she shows how the giving spirit can last all year long.  She is a very clever lady and I love some of her schemes and how they work out.  And there are some seriously laugh out loud moments in this book.  I especially enjoyed the tree story and the ghost story.  The narrative is broken into what seems to be more like short stories though there is a theme overall.

A Year Down Yonder (audio)

Mary Alice and Grandma Dowdel from Peck's Newbery Honor, A Long Way From Chicago, return.  This time Mary-Alice is sent to live with Grandma Dowdel while her father looks for work.  Her brother Joey, whose point of view A Long Way From Chicago was told, is gone and Mary Alice is alone with Grandma.  Told in several short stories about Mary Alice's year with her grandmother, we get to experience life in a small rural town and her "hard hearted" grandmother.  But Mary Alice learns that her grandmother is more than she appears when her grandmother finds a way to do good works under the cover of only doing her part.  A Year Down Yonder is a wonderful old-fashioned book and I loved it.  I would recommended it to anyone.


*for the Rainbow Connection Challenge and the Take Another Chance Challenge and the Audio Book Challenge