The arena may be a small hick town, but the battle for domination over that tiny turf is fierce, and Grandma Dowdel is a canny player for whom losing isn’t an option. And the vignettes, some involving a persnickety Grandma acting nasty while accomplishing a kindness, others in which she deflates an overblown ego or deals with a petty rivalry, are original and wildly funny. This winning sequel takes place several years after A Long Way From Chicago (1998) leaves off, once again introducing the reader to Mary Alice, now 15, and her Grandma Dowdel, an indomitable, idiosyncratic woman who despite her hard-as-nails exterior is able to see her granddaughter with “eyes in the back of her heart.” Peck’s slice-of-life novel doesn’t have much in the way of a sustained plot it could almost be a series of short stories strung together, but the narrative never flags, and the book, populated with distinctive, soulful characters who run the gamut from crazy to conventional, holds the reader’s interest throughout.
Set in 1937 during the so-called “Roosevelt recession,” tight times compel Mary Alice, a Chicago girl, to move in with her grandmother, who lives in a tiny Illinois town so behind the times that it doesn’t “even have a picture show.” As is traditional in body-switching stories, Tom and Emma’s incredible experience allows them to become friends again, a cheerful ending to a message-driven but enjoyable read.
Remarkably, the author succeeds in making clear exactly who is experiencing what in which body the design reinforces this with chapter headings including traditional male and female symbols to show which bodies will be the focus. Through alternating chapters of third-person narrative, the reader comes to see those differences and learns that families can be different, too. From sports and school to erections and first periods, Tom and Emma find that others’ expectations and their own physical and emotional makeup shape their experiences. Humorously presented, the underlying point is made explicit by their assignment for health class to pay special attention to how gender creates differences in our lives. A trampoline collision and a magic arrowhead cause sixth-graders Tom Witherspoon and Emma Baker to switch bodies for four long days in which they discover and learn to sympathize with gender differences.
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