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Author Set: Richard Peck
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Fair Weather
by Richard PeckThirteen-year-old Rosie Beckett has never strayed further from her family's farm than a horse can pull a cart. Then a letter from her Aunt Euterpe arrives, and everything changes. It's 1893, the year of the World's Columbian Exposition-the "wonder of the age"-a.k.a. the Chicago World's Fair. Aunt Euterpe is inviting the Becketts to come for a visit and go to the fair! Award-winning author Richard Peck's fresh, realistic, and fun-filled writing truly brings the World's Fair-and Rosie and her family-to life.
A Long Way From Chicago
by Richard PeckA summer they'll never forget.
Each summer Joey and his sister, Mary Alice—two city slickers from Chicago—visit Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town. Soon enough, they find that it's far from sleepy...and Grandma is far from your typical grandmother. From seeing their first corpse (and he isn't resting easy) to helping Grandma trespass, catch the sheriff in his underwear, and feed the hungry—all in one day—Joey and Mary Alice have nine summers they'll never forget!
A Newbery Honor Book
A National Book Award Finalist
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Year Down Yonder
by Richard PeckRichard Peck's Newbery Medal-winning sequel to A Long Way from Chicago
Mary Alice's childhood summers in Grandma Dowdel's sleepy Illinois town were packed with enough drama to fill the double bill of any picture show. But now she is fifteen, and faces a whole long year with Grandma, a woman well known for shaking up her neighbors-and everyone else! All Mary Alice can know for certain is this: when trying to predict how life with Grandma might turn out... better not. This wry, delightful sequel to the Newbery Honor Book A Long Way from Chicago has already taken its place among the classics of children's literature.
A Newbery Medal Winner
A New York Times Bestseller
An ALA Notable Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
A Booklist Best Book of the Year
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
Don't Look and It Won't Hurt
by Richard PeckA teenage girl struggles to understand her place within her family and in the world.
Ghosts I Have Been
by Richard PeckUpon discovering that she has the gift of Second Sight, Blossom also learns that whether glimpsing the future or traveling into the past, one is powerless to alter history.
Remembering the Good Times
by Richard PeckHow well do we know our best friends? They were the best of friends. Sixteen-year-old Buck Mendenhall first met Kate Lucas the summer before seventh grade. In eighth grade they made friends with the brilliant and wealthy newcomer, Trav Kirby. They didn't seem to need anyone else. Mostly they looked forward to the good times shared at Kate's house. It didn't matter if their classmates wondered about them; no one could unravel their binding ties. At least that's what they thought. When one of the trio finds the future too great a threat, the other two can only wonder: "How well did we know our best friend?" With humanity, wit, and a quiet intensity, Peck's novel depicts suicide as a turning point inward of the pressures in an alienated and violent society.
Those Summer Girls I Never Met
by Richard PeckDrew and Steph reluctantly take a Baltic cruise with their grandmother and have the experience of a lifetime.
The River Between Us
by Richard PeckThe year is 1861. Civil war is imminent and Tilly Pruitt's brother, Noah, is eager to go and fight on the side of the North.
With her father long gone, Tilly, her sister, and their mother struggle to make ends meet and hold the dwindling Pruitt family together. Then one night a mysterious girl arrives on a steamboat bound for St. Louis.
Delphine is unlike anyone the small river town has even seen. Mrs. Pruitt agrees to take Delphine and her dark, silent traveling companion in as boarders.
No one in town knows what to make of the two strangers, and so the rumors fly. Is Delphine's companion a slave? Could they be spies for the South? Are the Pruitts traitors? A masterful tale of mystery and war, and a breathtaking portrait of the lifelong impact one person can have on another.
Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
Are You in the House Alone?
by Richard PeckAn updated look for the classic YA thriller from genre heavyweight Richard Peck Sixteen-year-old Gail is living the upper-class suburban life when she begins receiving terrifying phone calls and notes in her locker. And the calls keep coming. When she's attacked by the town's golden boy everyone refuses to take action against him and his powerful family. A frightening drama that deals with heavy teen issues and the idea of justice (or lack thereof) from bestselling author Richard Peck.
Close Enough to Touch
by Richard PeckThrough his friendship with Margaret, Matt is able to come to terms concerning the death of Dory, his girlfriend.
The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp
by Richard PeckIt's Halloween, 1914. Teenage psychic Blossom Culp sneaks into the house where the rest of her class is having a party-and that's when everything goes haywire. Suddenly Blossom is hurled into a time warp. Her psychic powers have found a way to send her into the future-our time. But will they be able to send her back?
Princess Ashley
by Richard PeckIn her new high school, where her mother has taken a job as counselor, Chelsea experiences joys and sorrows as she makes choices about new friends and learns they are not always what they seem.
The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail
by Richard PeckNewbery Award-winning author Richard Peck is at his very best in this fast-paced mystery adventure. Fans of The Tale of Desperaux, A Little Princess, and Stuart Little will all be captivated by this memorable story of a lovable orphan mouse on an amazing quest. The smallest mouse in London's Royal Mews is such a little mystery that he hasn't even a name. And who were his parents? His Aunt Marigold, Head Needlemouse, sews him a uniform and sends him off to be educated at the Royal Mews Mouse Academy. There he's called "Mouse Minor" (though it's not quite a name), and he doesn't make a success of school. Soon he's running for his life, looking high and low through the grand precincts of Buckingham Palace to find out who he is and who he might become. Queen Victoria ought to be able to help him, if she can communicate with mice. She is all-seeing, after all, and her powers are unexplainable. But from her, Mouse Minor learns only that you do not get all your answers from the first asking. And so his voyage of self-discovery takes him onward, to strange and wonderful places.
Dreamland Lake
by Richard PeckFlip and Brian have been best friends since grade school. But everything changes during the spring of seventh grade. That's when they find a man lying dead in the leaves near Dreamland Lake. What happens in the summer that follows will change the course of their friendship--and their lives--forever."A finely tuned shocker."--Kirkus Reviews
The Ghost Belonged to Me
by Richard PeckOnly Alexander knows why the barn is haunted-and by what When Alexander notices an eerie light coming out of the barn,. He thinks his friend Blossom Culp is trying to spook him. But strange things really are happening there. Slimy footprints appear out of nowhere, and whimpering sounds float down from the hayloft. And when he ventures into the barn in the dark of night, his breath catches in his throat. Suddenly Blossom's words come back to him: "You can make contact with the Unseen. . . . " Now there's a girl ghost standing right in front of him, telling him of great danger ahead. But is there time for Alexander to act on her warning? Blossom Culp #1 Peck’s blending of mystery and humor makes an unusual and entertaining ghost story. ” Booklist, starred review .
Father Figure
by Richard PeckAfter his mother dies, 17-year-old Jim realizes he must raise his younger brother, Byron, alone. But when their father shows up with plans to take them to Florida, Jim wonders if the reunion will last.An ALA Best Book for Young Adults.
Unfinished Portrait of Jessica
by Richard PeckWhen Jessica's parents divorce and her father leaves, Jessica decides that the best way to punish her mother is to retreat to her room, a shrine to her glamorous traveling photographer dad.
The Teacher's Funeral
by Richard Peck"If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," begins Richard Peck's latest novel, a book full of his signature wit and sass.
Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the school down entirely and leave him free to roam.
No such luck. Russell has a particularly eventful season of schooling ahead of him, led by a teacher he never could have predicted--perhaps the only teacher equipped to control the likes of him: his sister Tansy.
Despite stolen supplies, a privy fire, and more than any classroom's share of snakes, Tansy will manage to keep that school alive and maybe, just maybe, set her brother on a new, wiser course.
As he did in A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, Richard Peck creates a whole world of folksy, one-of-a-kind characters here--the enviable and the laughable, the adorably meek and the deliciously terrifying.
There will be no forgetting Russell, Tansy, and all the rest who populate this hilarious, shrewd, and thoroughly enchanting novel.
Secrets at Sea
by Richard PeckIn the beloved tradition of The Borrowers, The Tale of Desperaux, and The Cricket in Times Square, here is an irresistible adventure story of the tiny individuals who secretly live among us humans. Helena is the oldest of four mouse siblings who live in the walls of the Cranston estate. It is 1887 when the nouveau riche Cranstons decide to take a cruise ship to England in search of a husband for their awkward older daughter. The Cranston mice stow away in the luggage . . . and so begins the time of their lives, as they meet intriguing, cosmopolitan mice onboard and take it upon themselves to help the human Cranston daughters find love. They might just find perfect futures for themselves as well!Full of laughs, near-misses, and surprise, this is Richard Peck at his best and most playful. .
Secrets of the Shopping Mall
by Richard PeckFrom the Book jacket: Eighth-graders Barnie and Teresa are sick and tired of their troubled life at home. So with only four dollars between them, they hop a bus and head for Paradise Park. But Paradise Park turns out to be a huge suburban shopping mall-not quite what they were expecting. Four dollars doesn't last long and Barnie and Teresa get stuck in the mall. They spend their days and nights in the climate-controlled consumer paradise of a large department store. But just when they think they can live there unnoticed forever, they find that even Paradise Park has its secrets. Even in the dead of night, they are not alone.... "[Peck] pokes fun, exposes hypocrisy, and treats with refreshing humor subjects too often talked to death. It's not a pretty place Mr. Peck shows us, but he makes us laugh at ourselves and wonder what is going on in the marketplaces of our society." -The New York Times Book Review "The author's deft handling of dialogue, inventive plot, and action-filled sequences make a highly engrossing and effective combination'.' -Booklist RICHARD PECK is one of the most highly acclaimed and popular writers of fiction for young people. His many award-winning novels include the Blossom Culp books The Ghost Belonged to Me, Ghosts I Have Been. The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp, and Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death, available in Yearling and Laurel-Leaf editions. Mr. Peck lives in New York City.
New York Time
by Richard PeckBarbara and Tom struggle for equilibrium in the heart of New York's East Side, after all those years of separate bathrooms, lawn services, and orderly cocktail parties conducted in a fog of Arpege and Old Spice. Barbara rises from the ruins of her marriage to find herself and the real meaning of love, as she heads out after the life she has always wanted.
Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death
by Richard PeckBlossom, high-school freshman and possessor of "second sight," helps an Egyptian princess, dead for 3500 years, to regain her tomb, and in addition saves a suffragette school teacher from losing her job in 1914.
The Best Man
by Richard PeckNewbery Medalist Richard Peck tells a story of small-town life, gay marriage, and everyday heroes in this novel for fans of Gary Schmidt and Jack Gantos
Archer Magill has spent a lively five years of grade school with one eye out in search of grown-up role models. Three of the best are his grandpa, the great architect; his dad, the great vintage car customizer,; and his uncle Paul, who is just plain great. These are the three he wants to be.
Along the way he finds a fourth--Mr. McLeod, a teacher. In fact, the first male teacher in the history of the school. But now here comes middle school and puberty. Change. Archer wonders how much change has to happen before his voice does. He doesn't see too far ahead, so every day or so a startling revelation breaks over him.
Then a really big one when he's the best man at the wedding of two of his role models. But that gets ahead of the story.In pages that ripple with laughter, there's a teardrop here and there. And more than a few insights about the bewildering world of adults, made by a boy on his way to being the best man he can be.
A Season of Gifts
by Richard PeckOne of children's literature's most memorable characters returns in this Christmastime companion to the Newbery Medal-winning A Year Down Yonder and Newbery Honor-winning A Long Way from Chicago.The eccentric, larger-than-life Grandma Dowdel is back in this heart-warming tale. Set 20 years after the events of A Year Down Yonder, it is now 1958 and a new family has moved in next door: a Methodist minister and his wife and kids. Soon Grandma Dowdel will work her particular brand of charm on all of them: ten-year-old Bob Barnhart, who is shy on courage in a town full of bullies; his two fascinating sisters; and even his parents, who are amazed to discover that the last house in town might also be the most vital.As Christmas rolls around, the Barnhart family realizes that they've found a true home, and a neighbor who gives gifts that will last a lifetime. "Pitch-perfect prose, laced with humor and poignancy, strong characterization and a clear development of the theme of gifts one person can offer make this one of Peck's best novels yet--and that's saying something."--Kirkus (starred review) "The type of down-home humor and vibrant characterizations Peck fans have come to adore re-emerge in full."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "With a storyteller's sure tone, Peck has once again created a whole world in one small Illinois town, a place where the folksy wisdom and generosity of one gruff old woman can change lives."--School Library Journal (starred review) Publishers Weekly Best Books of the YearKirkus Reviews Best Books of the YearBooklist Editors' Choice
Lost in Cyberspace
by Richard PeckMeet Josh Lewis, a sixth grader at the elite Huckley School. When his best friend Aaron announces that he can time travel with his computer, Josh isn't fazed. But when Aaron actually microprocesses himself into cyberspace, the duo must deal with unexpected visitors from the past -- and find out more about Huckley's history than they ever wanted to know! "Amiable characters, fleet pacing, and witty,in-the-know narration will keep even the non-bookish interested. "-- Publishers Weekly .