The King's English Bookshop

Meet Grandma Dowdel, if you haven't already (in the Newbery Honor book A Long Way from Chicago or the Newbery Medal-winning A Year Down Yonder), in her best tale yet. It's not really one tale--more like a series of interwoven vignettes, set against the summer, fall and winter of 1958, with a cumulative payoff at the end, all told by 12-year-old Bob Barnhart. Bob's father is the new preacher in town, and they've moved in next door to Grandma Dowdel. Bob's birthright earns him a dousing in the crick from a gang led by Roscoe Burdick, age 20. They string up Bob in netting suspended above Grandma Dowdel's privy--and that's where the narrator, gagged, bound and naked as a jailbird, first meets the legendary Grandma. More trouble brews when Roscoe's mismatched eyes take in the sight of Bob's 14-year-old sister Phyllis. And then Ruth Ann, Bob's younger sister, at six, becomes enthralled with Grandma Dowdel. How Grandma Dowdel secretly plays a role in the success of Bob's preacher father and works an invisible hand in other matters around town makes for some suspenseful and very comical moments.--From Shelf Awareness for Wednesday, December 9, 2009