A Long Way from Chicago

The book "A Long Way From Chicago" is an adventurous and funny story. The story takes place at Joey Dowdel's Grandmothers farm house in the country. Joey and his sister Mary Alice were sent to their Grandma's house during the summer because their parents had to go to Canada for their work. At first, Joey felt uncomfortable with his Grandmother because he had never met her before but eventually he got to know her and they became close friends.

On the first week at Grandma's, a man named Shotgun Cheatman died. Everyone in the town went to the funeral because he was the well known assistant to the Mayor. The funeral was held in Grandma's house and a creepy thing happened that night when Tom the cat crawled inside the casket. The next day, Joey, Mary Alice and Grandma left the house and walked across fields of tall grass and "cow pies aplenty" to Salt Creek to go fishing. They found an old wooden boat and Grandma rowed the boat out into the creek. While on their fishing adventure, they encountered a cottonmouth snake that fell into the boat and a party of drunken men on land dancing in their underwear.

Strange things began to happen the next couple days. First, Joey was in the living room of Grandma's house making a jig saw puzzle. He heard the sound of a horses hooves walking slowly on the street then the sound stopped in front of the house and heard someone put something in Grandma's mail box. Joey heard the horse walk away and a little while later Grandma's mailbox blew up. Next, Ms. Wilcox's outhouse was destroyed by a cherry bomb. Then, a dead mouse was found floating in the bottle of milk that was delivered to the front porch of Grandma's house. Grandma discovered that one person was responsible for all the strange events. How will Grandma, Joey, and his sister catch the culprit?

The author, Richard Peck, saw contemporary adolescent problems while teaching high school in Illinois. He liked the students, but soon quit the job. He decided to write books for kids that had problems he had seen. The students at the school inspired him and gave him the idea to write books.