The Teacher's Funeral by Richard Peck

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

We love listening to Richard Peck. Here are the previous Peck books we have experienced:

Secrets at Sea

The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail

Here Lies the Librarian

Past Perfect Present Tense

A Long Way From Chicago

Peck has a wide range of topics and settings, and a careful touch with is characters, who are complex and believable. This particular book is narrated by Russell Culver, a 15 year old Hoosier country hick and set in the very early 20th Century. He wants nothing more than to be done with school and catch a train to the Dakotas and work with a newfangled steam combine.

Russell seems to come close to realizing his dream when the teacher at the one-room schoolhouse dies unexpectedly. However, his hopes are dashed when his high school aged sister, Tansy, applies for and is given the teaching job. Tansy has her work cut out for her. In addition to a recalcitrant younger brother among the pupils, she has to figure out how to reach the minimum number of students. Armed (sort of) with the new compulsory attendance law, she attempts to recruit the local redneck family, which doesn’t exactly go well. Russell and his best friend accidently set the privy on fire, a snake turns up in the desk of the youngest pupil, and the schoolhouse is almost blown up in a creative attempt to clean a chimney.

This book is, the title notwithstanding, a comedy. A rip-roaring comedy that kept the kids in stitches. (And yes, I thought it was funny too.) People fall in creeks, there are a whole bunch of snakes, there are a plethora of eccentric characters, and there is the feckless Russell, who grows up despite his best efforts.

A few scenes particularly stood out to me. First, as in many of Peck’s books, the parents are admirable while remaining human. Russell’s widowed father seems distant sometimes, but he pays more attention than Russell thinks, and often has the right thing to say or do at the right time. A man of few words, but genuine decency. Russell’s aunt is likewise intriguing - she declined to marry Russell’s father after his mother died, but lived nearby and helped out as family would back then. All while smoking a pipe when the minister wasn’t looking.

I also found the funeral itself both amusing and a bit creepy. The preacher (who is a bit of the old school) takes the opportunity of the funeral to rail against the children, who clearly are inferior to his generation, who are to blame for the teacher’s untimely death by harrying her to an early grave. Russell is worried that his dad will take the preacher’s admonition to go home and beat the little hellions seriously. He doesn’t, of course, but Russell has to start noticing who his dad is before he understands.

As always, Peck treats his characters gently, and with compassion. In the Peck world, there are always shades of grey. Even Russell is an interesting choice, because he is written sympathetically, but he is a flawed character. Actually, a bit annoying to someone like me who was the goody-two-shoes people like Russell hate. I loved learning as a kid, and study never bothered me. And hey, have you noticed the sort of things I read for fun? But Peck makes Russell real, and helps the (possibly bookish) reader see another perspective. It is hard not to root for Tansy too - she is the kind of teacher I would have loved to have: dedicated, creative, observant.

There probably isn’t a wrong choice when it comes to Peck, at least as far as I can tell. We have enjoyed all of the books we have listened too, and my sons in particular have been inspired to read additional titles from the library.

One final note. Peck himself (as he often does) adds a little afterword to the book, which he reads himself. In this one, he tells of the real life inspiration for a scene in the book. It turns out that his father actually did attend a hog butchering as the supposed city slicker, and acquitted himself admirably. Unlike the character in the book, however, his father did win the heart of the pretty girl.

This version was narrated by Dylan Baker - not my favorite reader, but not terrible either. My one quibble with a few of the Peck books is that the narration often has flaws. (My wife couldn’t stand the reading of Here Lies the Librarian.) I don’t think Peck himself narrates any of his books, which is a shame, because, if his introductions and afterwords are any indication, he is a fine reader.

A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

Earlier this year, we listened to a collection of short stories by Richard Peck. (Past Perfect Present Tense) In his excellent introduction to each section, he explained the history of each story, and in some cases, what happened after he wrote it. Several of the stories inspired entire books. One of those, “Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground,” eventually grew into this book. 

The central character is Grandma, a corpulent old lady who lives in a very small town in the middle of nowhere “a long way from Chicago.” The narrator and his little sister go spend seven consecutive summers with her, from 1929 to 1935. In the original story, Grandma pranks a big city reporter who comes to do a “human interest” story on a local grifter with an interesting name who has died. My kids loved the story, so I put the longer novel on the list.

Each year takes a chapter, and recounts one incident in that summer. As the kids grow, so does the narrative. Joe and Mary Alice go from little kids to teens, and the stories change with them. As in the original, the stories are both humorous and shocking. Grandma is a horrible influence in many ways. She feuds with her frenemy Effie Wilcox - but takes action to reverse the foreclosure on Effie’s house. She poaches fish right under the nose of the inebriated sheriff, then shamelessly blackmails him. She is a talented liar who never hesitates to use her skills to accomplish her goals. She lights off cherry bombs and fires her shotgun indoors. As Mary Alice says, “I don’t think grandma’s a very good influence on us.”

And yet, she is compassionate in her own way, caring for the needs of an elderly woman, helping an abused young woman escape her controlling mother, and putting some local hooligans in their place after they start vandalizing the property of elderly town residents.

She just holds to her own peculiar code of ethics, more or less. There is a good bit of Tom Sawyer in her, the eccentricity only heightened by age and widowhood.

“‘Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself.”

Richard Peck consistently writes with a light touch. I think he tends to let his characters dictate the plot, and just follows them where they go. As Past Perfect Present Tense showed, he has a wide range, from humor to ghost stories, from period settings to animal tales. Throughout it all, his characters tend to be complex, flawed, and interesting. He also doesn’t shy away from real issues. One memorable scene is where the nephew of the local banker recites a rather sexist poem (which I can’t find, but which seems very 19th Century). Peck doesn’t lecture, but gently elicits the reactions of Mary Alice and Grandma. There is a certain amount of grit and realism, but never for its own sake. Ever since my second daughter introduced us to one of his mouse stories, I have appreciated Peck as an author with skill and imagination.

This book isn’t a bad place to start with Peck. It appeals to a range of children, being neither too serious for young readers nor boring to the older ones.

***

Other Richard Peck books we have listened to:

Secrets at Sea

The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail

Here Lies the Librarian

Past Perfect Present Tense

Past Perfect Present Tense by Richard Peck

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

My second daughter (the mouse and rat fan) introduced me to Richard Peck a couple of years ago, during a long camping trip. We listened to Secrets at Sea, which I thought was the sort of story you would get if Henry James had written a children’s book about mice. Not too long after, we listened to his other mouse book, The Mouse with the Question Mark Tale, which continues the theme of Victorian mice. These two books are fairly recent ones, and a good bit out of character for Peck, who primarily wrote about humans. In any event, the tales were charming and imaginative. A few readers of this blog suggested we explore his other books as well, which we did last year with Here Lies the Librarian, a tale of cars and feminism coming of age. Although my wife disliked the narrator for that audiobook, the kids and I enjoyed the story. 

I chose Past Perfect Present Tense for two reasons. First, it was available immediately from our library, without having to request it. Second, because it was short stories, we could stop in the middle if it was too long for our trip. (It wasn’t, though, so we finished it all.)

Richard Peck hasn’t written a whole lot of short stories. For the most part, he is a novelist, as he readily admits. There are thirteen stories in this collection, and they are all he wrote.

In addition to the stories, Peck has included his own introductions to the sections, and his musings on writing in general and short stories in particular. These are quite good, I must say. Here is the opening bit:

A story isn’t what is. It’s what if? Fiction isn’t real life with the names changed. It’s an alternate reality to reflect the reader’s own world.

But what is a short story not? It’s not a condensation of a novel, or an unfinished one. It’s not Cliffs Notes to anything. It has its own shape and profile. It’s not the New York skyline; it’s a single church spire. Its end is much nearer its beginning, and so it can be overlooked.

The short story is much misunderstood. There are even aspiring writers who think they’ll start out writing short stories and work their way up to the big time: novels. It doesn’t work like that. A short story isn’t easier than a novel. It has so little space to make its mark that it requires the kind of self-mutilating editing most new writers aren’t capable of. It has less time to plead its case.

I would agree with him that in many ways, writing a good short story is one of the hardest things to write. Or at least write well.

Peck divides the book into four parts. The first includes only his first story, “Priscilla and the Wimps,” which is about a large girl who takes on a bully and his gang. The second is stories set in the past, the third is ghost stories, and the fourth is stories set in the present day. In general, these stories are aimed at late elementary children or Junior High, perhaps. However, like most good stories, they work well for a variety of ages.

One thing I will caution, however, is that Peck isn’t squeamish. Ghosts require dead people, for example, and thus, people die in unpleasant ways. In one case, it is by suicide. Peck is not at all pro-suicide, of course, but be prepared for the discussion with the kids if you haven’t already had it. Likewise, for one of the stories set in modern times (“I Go Along”), there is a reference to sex, which surely would have made a few Victorians reach for the smelling salts. Actually, it is an amusing line, which caused my tween daughters (11 and 12) to give me an amused smirk.

Being juniors, we also figure we know all there is to know about sex.  We know things about sex no adult ever heard of.  Still, the sight of a pregnant English teacher slows us down some.

Some of these stories ended up being the starting point for full novels. In particular, “Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground” inspired Peck to write more about eccentric older women in A Year Down Yonder and A Long Way From Chicago, while “The Electric Summer” a coming of age tale set at the St. Louis World’s Fair grew into the longer work about the fair, Fair Weather.

I particularly liked “The Electric Summer,” I will admit. The young narrator manages to talk her mother into attending the fair, and the two of them have a grand time that the daughter did not expect. At the end, it becomes clear that both have changed. Life will never be the same for the daughter as she realizes she doesn’t wish to stay on the farm all her life, and the mother comes to peace with the knowledge that she will have to let her daughter go. All too often in fiction and real life, this transition is fraught. I liked that Peck captured the struggles of both characters yet turned the story to a mutual understanding rather than chasm at the end. I have children who will be teens very soon indeed, and my hope is that we can make that transition from parent and child to friends and allies as they mature.

“Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground” is a classic story of the cantankerous old granny taking on the condescending and gullible big city journalist. Peck wrote it for a collection that was themed as stories about firearms. I suspect Peck - who worried that the book would be full of testosterone-drenched tales of manliness - enjoyed tweaking the editor as much as granny. The theme of the ornery old lady returns in “The Three Century Woman.” My wife’s great-grandmother (who passed on recently at 102) was a bit like this sort, asking for a new chain saw for her 80th birthday, and living on her own out in the middle of the Texas hill country into her 90s.

These stories cover a wide variety of settings and moods, but throughout, the characters are memorable and full of nuance. One of the challenges of the short story form is that it is more difficult to flesh the characters out in a small space. Thus, words count, and the little details make all the difference.

Another thing that comes to mind as a positive for me is that Peck, regardless of who his characters are, roots for the little guy. He writes strong female characters and boys who have emotions and adults who treat children with respect.

I am a big fan of short stories, and I was happy to find Peck’s to be solid. Peck is one of those children’s authors that holds enough depth to appeal to adults. His writing is more literary than average, I would say. Not that this is the only sort of kids’ book that is worth reading, of course. But we have enjoyed a number of books during our travels that are like this, with some moral and psychological heft underlying the excitement of the plot.

One final bit about the audiobook. Peck himself reads the introductions. The stories are split between Paul Boehmer, who reads the books with a male narrator or perspective, while Lara Schwartzberg reads the ones from a female perspective. That these are split fairly equally speaks to Peck’s ability to write well either way.

We will undoubtedly be listening to more Richard Peck in the next few years during our travels. From what we have listened to so far, he is a good writer, adept in multiple genres, and with a good eye for character.

Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

My kids introduced me to Richard Peck, via his recently written stories about mice. We hadn’t explored any of his other books yet, but a commenter on my blog recommended that we branch out. While our library (sadly) doesn’t have many of his earlier works on audiobook, it does have some. I decided to grab Here Lies the Librarian, which was one of the recommendations, and see if the kids liked it.

Here are the previous Richard Peck reviews:

Secrets at Sea

The Mouse With The Question Mark Tail

Here Lies the Librarian is aimed at an older audience than the mouse tales, although Peck himself would probably dispute that, having famously said, “I learned that there is no such thing as a 'grade reading level'; a young person's 'reading level' and attention span will rise and fall according to his degree of interest.” I believe this is true, particularly considering my own kids’ obsession with Alexander McCall Smith. 

The narrator of this story is Eleanor McGrath, aka “Peewee,” a 14 year old girl who assists her adult brother at his garage. The story is set in the years just before World War One, in rural Indiana. She plans to continue her mechanic duties, but some visitors from the big city turn their lives upside down.

Irene Ridpath, a library science major at the university, drives through, and decides to apply (along with her sorority sisters) for the vacant post of librarian in the small town. She also determines to befriend the McGraths, and give Eleanor a shot at a better life.

The story centers around a dirt track race, whose ending I won’t give away here. There are the villains: the owners of a rival garage who will resort to sabotage in order to drum up business. There are other memorable characters, from the old miser who is persuaded to hire the librarians when a classic “price drop” strategy is employed, to the semi-senile “Colonel,” who keeps imagining himself back in the Civil War.

Peck draws in a plethora of historical figures, ideas, and most of all, cars. To say that classic cars are an important part of the story is perhaps even to understate things. Classic cars of the era are lovingly treated, with an affection more than awe. Peck must have a certain amount of personal love for the topic.

This book was therefore quite interesting to my oldest daughter, who is (like her mother) a car aficionado. Right now, she is particularly fond of Porsches, but any classic or sports car will turn her head.

The Stutz Bearcat plays a particularly prominent role in this book. Here is the 1914 model described: 

 Photo by Autoworldmobilia. Creative Commons license.

 Um, yeah, that’s a really pretty set of wheels.

My wife would prefer a Rolls Royce “Silver Ghost,” but that is a matter of taste. I’d probably vote for the C1 Corvette as my dream car - in red and white please - so there you go…

For those who are interested, the Blackhawk Museum in Danville, CA, has a fantastic collection of cars from the early era. It is well worth a visit. We need to return there, now that my kids are old enough to truly appreciate it. 

Back to the book. As I mentioned, this book is geared toward older kids. It has dead bodies, serious injuries, and some definite peril. For my kids, this wasn’t a problem, but your kids may vary.

I did think the era-appropriate feminism was a nice touch. After all, let women compete in races, and next thing you know, they will be wanting to vote! For those of us living 100 years later, we can take for granted that women can do these things, but back then, this was definitely not the case, and we should remember the hard work of the feminists that made this possible for our daughters.

My kids enjoyed this book, and I found it compelling as well.

***

Hey, a little music for fun. The Velvet Underground name check the Stutz Bearcat:

Riding a Stutz Bear Cat, Jim

ya know, those were different times

all the poets studied rules of verse

and those ladies they rolled their eyes...