A Season of Gifts [Paperback]

One of the most adored characters in children's literature is the eccentric, forceful, bighearted Grandma Dowdel, star of the Newbery Award-winningA Year Down Yonderand Newbery Honor-winningA Long Way from Chicago. And it turns out that her story isn't over. It's now 1958, and a new family has moved in next door to Mrs. Dowdel: a minister and his wife and kids. Soon Mrs. Dowdel will work her particular brand of charm on all of them, and they will quickly discover that the last house in town might also be the most vital.-This is one of Peck+s best novels yet-and that+s saying something.+-Kirkus Reviews, starred review

RICHARD PECK (1934-2018) was born in Decatur, Illinois and lived in New York City for nearly 50 years. The acclaimed author of 35 novels for children and young adults, he won the Newbery Medal for A Year Down Yonder, a Newbery Honor for A Long Way from Chicago, the Scott O’Dell Award for The River Between Us, the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Are You in the House Alone?, a Boston Globe-Horn BookAward Honor for The Best Man, and the Christopher Medal for The Teacher’s Funeral. He was the first children’s author ever to have been awarded a National Humanities Medal, and was twice a National Book Award Finalist.  

Mrs. Dowdel

One evening we were just settling around the supper table. There were some slices of ham from somewhere. Mother had pulled together a potato salad out of three potatoes. We’d just joined hands. Dad began, “For what we are about to receive—”

When an almighty explosion rocked the room. Our kitchen clock stopped, and the box of matches jumped off the stove. Every nesting bird in the county took flight.

Russians, we thought, and without a Civil Defense bomb shelter for miles. Another explosion erupted and bounced off every house from here tolĂ`