A Year Down Yonder

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck was published in 2000 by Puffin. Written for middle grade readers, the novel revisits the Great Depression, documenting its impact on the rural Midwest with a seriocomic account of 15-year-old Mary Alice Dowdel, who is forced to leave her home in Chicago and live in the country with her eccentric grandmother for a year. By turns farcical, romantic, satirical, and somber, Peck’s novel explores themes including The Challenges of Feeling Out of Place, The Power of Intergenerational Relationships, and The Effect of Societal Upheaval on Families. In 2001, A Year Down Yonder won the prestigious Newbery Medal and is now regarded as a classic of children’s literature.

This guide refers to the 2000 Puffin paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of bullying, animal death, and graphic violence.

Plot Summary

The recession of 1937, a setback in America’s long recovery from the Great Depression, has upended the life of 15-year-old Mary Alice Dowdel. With her father unemployed and her older brother planting trees out West for the Civilian Conservation Corps, Mary Alice leaves her Chicago home to live for a year with her grandmother in rural Illinois. Bidding farewell to her parents and friends, as well as Chicago’s movie theaters, telephones, and modern plumbing, Mary Alice anticipates a lonely life with her tempestuous grandmother. 

Mary Alice arrives in town with her suitcase, portable radio, and pet cat, Bootsie. She finds Grandma Dowdel as bluff and no-nonsense as she remembers her, without “a hug in her” (5). In school, Mary Alice stands out with her citified clothes and hair, attracting the ire of Mildred Burdick, who follows her home to bully a dollar out of her. Grandma quickly dispenses with Mildred by tying her boots to her horse and setting it free, forcing the girl to walk home barefoot. The Burdicks, Grandma says, are a disreputable family, easily recognizable by their heterochromia, the genetic trait of mismatched eyes (blue and green).

Halloween in town is much more boisterous than in Chicago, preceded by weeks of mischief and vandalism. By mid-October, most of the outhouses in town have been destroyed. Grandma, however, likes a little horseplay herself and ruthlessly defends her outhouse by dumping a pot of homemade glue on a vandal’s head. 

The next night, having promised to make pies for the school’s Halloween party, Grandma leads Mary Alice to Old Man Nyquist’s yard. She uses Nyquist’s tractor to knock the pecans off his tree. After she and Mary Alice furtively gather up the nuts, she steals pumpkins from yet another neighbor, Mrs. Pensinger. At the party, Grandma’s pumpkin pies and pecan pies are a great success, and even Mrs. Pensinger praises them. 

A couple of weeks later, on Armistice Day, Grandma takes Mary Alice to a “turkey shoot,” a charity to raise money for World War I veterans. The event’s only food is burgoo (a sort of stew), and Grandma acts as cashier, squeezing money out of wealthy customers while charging poorer ones little or nothing. Afterward, she gives all the proceeds to Mrs. Abernathy, a “forlorn lady” whose son was injured in the war.

As Christmas approaches, the school casts its annual nativity play, and Mary Alice wins the role of the Virgin Mary, to the chagrin of Carleen Lovegood, who must settle for the role of lead angel. Meanwhile, Mary Alice learns the secret source of Grandma’s income: She traps foxes at night to sell the pelts to furriers. More and more, Mary Alice is amazed by, and concerned about, her grandmother’s tireless, risk-taking work ethic. 

On Christmas Eve, Mary Alice, wearing an elaborate halo handcrafted by Grandma, makes her entrance in the play, but chaos ensues when a live baby is found in the manger instead of the plastic baby Jesus. Because it has blue and green eyes, Grandma loudly declares the baby “a Burdick.” The baby’s appearance explains why Mildred has been out of school for so long. Rounding out the evening’s surprises, Mary Alice’s brother, Joey, shows up at the play: With her fox pelt money, Grandma has bought the two of them train tickets so that they can visit their parents in Chicago for Christmas.

In February, Grandma receives a call from Wilhelmina Weidenbach, wife of the town’s banker and president of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Wilhelmina demands that Grandma make cherry tarts for a DAR tea party even though she’s not a member. Grandma agrees to make the tarts, but only on the condition that the DAR relocate its “exclusive” tea to Grandma’s living room. 

Meanwhile, on Valentine’s Day, Mary Alice’s class is astounded when Ina-Rae Gage, a shy, unpopular girl, receives a stack of valentines, including one from Royce McNabb, a tall, handsome senior who has recently moved to town. Carleen Lovejoy, who has eyes for Royce, explodes in jealousy. Later, Ina-Rae whispers her thanks to Mary Alice for expertly forging the valentines. 

On George Washington’s birthday, Wilhelmina and the other DAR ladies arrive for their “aristocratic” tea party, only to find that Grandma has invited two guests more guests: Effie Wilcox and Mae Griswold, who reveals that Wilhelmina is a Burdick who was adopted as a baby and therefore doesn’t qualify for the DAR. Aghast, three of the DAR ladies remove the sobbing Wilhelmina from the ruins of the party, while a fourth runs off to spread the news of her disgrace.

In the spring, Grandma gets a new lodger: Arnold Green, a Paris-educated artist whom the federal government has commissioned to paint a mural in the town’s post office. Since the post office is too small for a mural, Green spends his time painting canvases in Grandma’s attic instead. One Sunday, Mary Alice invites Royce McNabb over to study. To her horror, their study date is interrupted by a screaming woman wrapped in a huge snake: the town’s postmistress, Maxine Patch, whom Green was painting nude when the snake dropped onto her from the rafters. As Maxine sprints naked from the house, Grandma fires off her shotgun to summon more witnesses. The scandal gives meek Arnold a reputation as a “dangerous man,” sparking a romance with Mary Alice’s teacher, who soon becomes his fiancée.

On a summery day toward the end of the school year, the sky suddenly darkens. As Mary Alice runs home to hide in the cellar with Grandma, a big tornado deals the town a “glancing blow,” uprooting trees and tearing up roofs and outhouses. Afterward, Mary Alice and Grandma set out to help neighbors whom no one else would check up on. They rescue Old Man Nyquist from being smothered under his fallen ceiling. Mary Alice is touched when Grandma risks her life to save Bootsie and her kitten.

On the end-of-school hayride, Mary Alice and Royce find themselves sitting together, much to Carleen’s dismay. However, Mary Alice’s year in the country is nearly up; her parents expect her to return to Chicago. She asks to stay, but Grandma, knowing what’s best for her, presses her to leave, adding that her door is “always open” for visits. Seven years later, in the final months of World War II, Mary Alice returns to Grandma’s house to marry her fiancé, Royce.