40 Fun Facts About A Year Down Yonder

What does Grandma Dowdel pour over the prankster she trips with a wire outside her house in A Year Down Yonder?

Warm glue is her weapon: she cooks it on the stove, strings a wire across the yard and waits in the dark for the gang to arrive.

In A Year Down Yonder, what drops from Grandma Dowdel's attic onto the model posing for her artist boarder?

A snake that Grandma keeps in the attic to scare birds out of the roof lands on Maxine Patch, who bolts through town wearing nothing else.

In A Year Down Yonder, what does Mary Alice find in the manger instead of a doll during the Christmas play?

A live baby is lying there, and Grandma Dowdel can tell at a glance which local family the foundling belongs to.

What does Grandma Dowdel ram into a neighbor's tree to shake down pecans for her pies in A Year Down Yonder?

A tractor does the job: the owner had said she could have any pecans that had fallen, so Grandma makes sure plenty of them fall.

How does Grandma Dowdel deal with the bully who follows Mary Alice home demanding a dollar in A Year Down Yonder?

Grandma unties her horse and makes her boots vanish, leaving the bully a five-mile walk home barefoot.

Which American children's book prize did A Year Down Yonder win after its prequel was named a runner-up?

The Newbery Medal went to the sequel in 2001; the first book about Grandma Dowdel had stopped one step short with an honor citation.

In A Year Down Yonder, what does Grandma Dowdel spread on the paws of Mary Alice's cat to make it stay?

Butter is the trick: Grandma rubs it on all four paws, and by the time the cat has licked them clean the cobhouse feels like home.

Which animals does Grandma Dowdel trap on winter nights to earn extra money in A Year Down Yonder?

Foxes: she sells the pelts, and sews fur cuffs onto Mary Alice's old plaid coat so that it feels new for the Christmas play.

Which classmate does Mary Alice marry in Grandma Dowdel's house at the end of A Year Down Yonder?

Royce McNabb, the new boy from the year she spent downstate, had three days of army leave for the wedding, and Grandma gave the bride away.

Which disaster sends Mary Alice running home from school to check on Grandma Dowdel in A Year Down Yonder?

A tornado is bearing down, and while her classmates shelter in the school basement she runs home, where the two ride it out in the cellar.

Which earlier Richard Peck book first sent Mary Alice and her sibling on summer visits to Grandma Dowdel?

A Long Way from Chicago came first, a novel in stories that follows the children's visits to Grandma each summer from 1929 to 1935.

Which New Deal program sends Mary Alice's older sibling out west to plant trees in A Year Down Yonder?

The Civilian Conservation Corps job means Mary Alice must face Grandma without the ally who shared every earlier visit.

What is the name of the cat Mary Alice carries on the train to Grandma Dowdel's in A Year Down Yonder?

Bootsie is banished to the cobhouse out back, where the city pet turns into an independent country cat and raises a kitten.

Which brand of radio does Mary Alice bring from home and listen to in bed each night in A Year Down Yonder?

Philco made her prized set: alone upstairs in a dark house full of bumps and scuttling, she plays it to take her mind off her fears.

In A Year Down Yonder, which second job has the school principal taken on because times are so hard?

Janitor is his other role: Mary Alice is mortified when Grandma seems to be enrolling her with the man sweeping the school basement.

Which classmate demands a dollar from Mary Alice on her first day at school in A Year Down Yonder?

Mildred Burdick assumes any city girl must be rich; Mary Alice snaps back that a rich girl would never have been sent away.

Which holiday is at the center of Vittles and Vengeance, the second chapter of A Year Down Yonder?

Halloween goes on for weeks in Grandma Dowdel's town and is her favorite holiday, because she relishes its mischief and pranks.

Which boy turns up bald and bandaged at the school party in the Vittles and Vengeance chapter of A Year Down Yonder?

Augie Fluke is the principal's son, and his father works out the truth when Grandma serves pie with the very knife the boy dropped.

Whose pecan tree does Grandma Dowdel raid for her pies in A Year Down Yonder?

Old Man Nyquist sleeps through the raid, and he is no more grateful months later when Grandma frees him from under his own bed.

Which backyard buildings do autumn pranksters attack in Grandma Dowdel's town in A Year Down Yonder?

Privies are fair game every year, but the boys keep forgetting that Grandma Dowdel enjoys the holiday's mischief as much as they do.

Which holiday does Grandma Dowdel's town mark with a moment of silence at eleven o'clock in A Year Down Yonder?

Armistice Day brings the town to a halt at the hour the guns fell silent in 1918, and Grandma Dowdel takes the silence very seriously.

Which annual event at the Abernathy farm in A Year Down Yonder raises money for a wounded veteran's care?

A turkey shoot it is, though no bird is harmed: the men and boys fire air rifles at paper targets to see who is the best shot.

What is the name of the stew of whatever is on hand that Grandma Dowdel sells in A Year Down Yonder?

Burgoo is meant to cost a dime a mug, but Grandma charges the banker far more and takes nothing from the poor and hungry.

In A Year Down Yonder, what does Grandma Dowdel cut into tiny stars to make Mary Alice's Christmas halo?

Tin, snipped into stars, makes the halo; Grandma had acted as if the play meant nothing to her, yet the piece plainly took her a long time.

Which relative turns up as a Christmas surprise for Mary Alice after the school play in A Year Down Yonder?

Her brother arrives from out west on a ticket Grandma bought with her trapping money, which is where most of those earnings went.

What does the banker's wife beg Grandma Dowdel to bake for the ladies' February tea in A Year Down Yonder?

Cherry tarts are the tradition at the Washington's Birthday tea, and Grandma agrees on one condition: the ladies must hold it at her house.

Which women's society holds its Washington's Birthday tea at Grandma Dowdel's in A Year Down Yonder?

Daughters of the American Revolution members boast of their ancestry, which Grandma punctures by seating an ancient guest who knows the leader's real origins.

In A Year Down Yonder, which neighbor learns at the tea that the banker's wife is her long-lost sister?

Effie Wilcox is thrilled; the banker's wife, who had boasted of her fine ancestry, bursts into tears and refuses to speak to her.

Which family trait does Aunt Mae cite to expose the banker's wife's humble birth at the tea in A Year Down Yonder?

Mismatched eyes, one blue and one green, run in a poor local clan, and the old lady recalls two of its girls being sent to separate foster homes.

Which best-dressed girl in Mary Alice's school claims the handsome newcomer as hers in A Year Down Yonder?

Carleen Lovejoy, the richest girl in the class, has silk stockings and a satin angel gown, but she ends Valentine's Day with a single card.

Which secret sideline lets Mary Alice stir up Grandma Dowdel's town without anyone knowing in A Year Down Yonder?

Newspaper reporter is her hidden role: she sends unsigned items to the local paper, and as an adult she takes up the trade for real.

From which city does the artist who boards with Grandma Dowdel arrive in A Year Down Yonder?

New York is home to Arnold Green, who pays a steep $2.50 a day for his room because nobody else in town had offered him one.

What has the government sent Grandma Dowdel's lodger, an artist, to paint in her town in A Year Down Yonder?

A post office mural is his official job, but Grandma also lets him use her attic as a studio for what he calls his real art.

What does Grandma Dowdel grab when screams ring out from her lodger's attic studio in A Year Down Yonder?

Her shotgun comes out at once, and after the screamer flees she fires it skyward so that every neighbor steps outside to watch.

What is the job of the woman Grandma Dowdel pairs off with her artist lodger in A Year Down Yonder?

English teacher Miss Butler comes to supper, finds the artist across the table, and is wearing his engagement ring by graduation time.

Which school subject does Mary Alice claim to need tutoring in so the new boy will visit in A Year Down Yonder?

Math is her excuse, and she picks Sunday afternoon for the lesson because that is when Grandma usually takes a long nap.

During which war does Mary Alice return to Grandma Dowdel's to be married in the last chapter of A Year Down Yonder?

World War II is in its final year, so the wedding is plain: the bride saves ration cards for a suit and shoes, and Grandma bakes the cake.

Which later Richard Peck novel brings Grandma Dowdel back for a third time, after A Year Down Yonder?

A Season of Gifts arrived in 2009 with a different narrator: Bobby, a boy whose family moves in next door to the old lady.

Which writing tool did Richard Peck, author of A Year Down Yonder, insist on using for every book?

A typewriter was his only tool: he refused newer technology and wrote each page six times before filing it in a binder.

In which Illinois city did Richard Peck, the author of A Year Down Yonder, grow up and go to school?

Decatur was his boyhood home, and visits from there to his grandmother's small town nearby gave him the setting for the Grandma Dowdel books.