A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck is about a young brother and sister from Chicago who go to a small town in Illinois to visit their grandma. The story is set during the depression in the years 1929-1935 and 1942. During their visits each summer with Grandma the children find out that there is more to her than they think and she isn't your typical grandparent. On many occasions their grandma lies (stretches the truth) to get what she wants or to make people believe she is tougher than she it. The children witness their grandma tells lies about people that others look down on to make people respect them a little more. Her lying always turns into something good and gets the children even more interested in their kooky grandmother.
I really enjoyed reading this book. There are so many great historical references and topics that open your eyes to life in the 1920s. I also loved Grandma and the things she did to keep life interesting. She was such a mysterious person and always kept you guessing. I thought the things she did to change peoples' perspectives about lower class people was a noble thing to do. She was true to herself and her friends. She also had very many dimensions that made her even more interesting.
This book could be used for so many things in a classroom read aloud. You could do many research projects with the historical topics that are talked about in the book. There will also be many opportunities to talk about different things that they had in the 20s and 30s like a privy. You could also have a good conversation with students about morals and lying. This book could be used as a read aloud in fourth and fifth grade but the text in this book could be a little challenging for them to read on their own. Some of the words are challenging and the content may be a little confusing to those students who don't know much about the 20s and 30s. Advanced fifth graders and older would enjoy reading this book on their own. I would definitely have this book in my classroom library and use it as a read aloud. There is great historical information in this book that would make for great discussions and projects.
I think the depression was such an interesting era. In highschool we had to interview somebody that had lived through the depression. It was one of the most interesting things that I had done. I would like to read this book!
ReplyDeleteThere is unfortunately not enough history taught in the classrooms anymore. This book would be a great way to bring some back! I liked you idea for using it as a guide for classroom research project.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading this book, my practicum teacher told me that she really didn't like it. So I thought it was weird when I loved it. Was there something I was missing? Anyway, I was glad to see that you liked it, too. I thought it was great how the story was written only about their week with their grandmother and the reader had to inference (Ha! I'm using it everywhere, now!) how the characters had changed from year to year.
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