The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts

Rating:
Summary: "You could have heard a bee belch." *
Review: The vernacular, lifestyle, and setting of rural Hoosier-land a century ago along with Richard Peck's flourish with hyperbole makes Russell Culver's reminiscences as an adolescent simply irresistable. I'm a sucker for these American heartland tales of yesteryear. Peck's use of history and artifacts of the period are mesmirizing (e.g. Karo Syrup cans for lunchpails); his description of the countryside, vivid. The reader sees, smells, tastes, and hears everthing as Russell and his brother Lloyd walk down Hog Scald Road. The book stuck like flypaper in my hands--I could scarcely put it down in 2 days of reading.

The humor is uproarious--you'll find yourself spontaneously erupting into loud guffaws! The storytelling is so well-crafted--so seamless; the writing, graceful and balanced. It will be savored by avid children's literature readers. Interpersed in the hilarity with poignancy is the low-key, loving guidance of Russell's father as well as his sister Tansy's high expectation and insistance that he achieve versus allow his foibles to become an excuse in the future for failure by his little brother. You will experience tears from laughter; tears from being moved by goodness and love.

And the ending--it's as fine a one as is in N. Babbit's Tuck Everlasting. ...the highest praise by me--it's just superb!

Whatever will the Newberry Committee do next year? Do they dare recognize Mr. Peck yet a 3rd time for his empassioned flair for writing these wise yarns about our country's rural life in 1st half of the 20th century? If not, then Mr. Peck earns my vote to join the late Scott O'Dell as a recipient of the Hans Christian Anderson Author Medal. He is past due.

Mr. Peck has dedicated The Teacher's Funeral to the memory of his parents. I can only begin to appreciate how heartfelt and profound the legacy of their lives have been for him; yet, by the end of the story, I know for certain how proud they would be!

Thank you, Mr. Peck, for all those immemorable characters like Aunt Fanny Hemline and the Tarboxes.

* page 40, "A Mess of Bad Puppies," The Teacher's Funeral, by Richard Peck



Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: THE TEACHER'S FUNERAL
Review: A new Richard Peck book? Hey, that's music to my ears!

"Now we were walking up from the lot when we heard music, of all things.
"It stopped us cold. We'd never heard music hanging like haze over the blue evening. I recalled the calliope on the Case Special, trilling down the track. But we were miles from the railroad, and this was a full orchestra, with violins."

Back when I was a kid, we bought our music on vinyl and played it on phonographs. As long as I can remember, I've always had an ear tuned to the newest songs on the radio, and there were hundreds of tunes with which I passionately fell in love. I would hop on my Huffy banana bike and pedal down to the store so that I could add to my stacks of 45s. (They had one song on each side.)

In contrast to someone's absolutely exquisite single--say Junior Walker's "What Does it Take to Win Your Love For Me" or (more recently) The Church's "Under the Milky Way"--it was rare to discover whole albums, or even whole sides of albums, that were consistently exceptional.

As would make sense, I can say that the artists who created those albums that I loved all the way from one end to the other became my favorite bands. That's what The Beatles' LPs always did for me. It was the same with the Moody Blues. Bowie did it with Ziggy Stardust, Zappa with We're Only in it for the Money, Kantner with Blows Against the Empire, Todd Rundgren with Another Live. (I still savor sitting up front at his Wollman Rink show when he was recording it.) The Dead did it over and over and over again. (This is fun!) How about More Songs about Buildings and Food or My Aim is True? Queen did it with A Night at the Opera, Suzanne Vega with Solitude Standing, Ani with Not A Pretty Girl.

Those are the thoughts that come to mind as I write, yet again, about the work of Richard Peck. This time it is in regard to his fifth straight novel set entirely or partly around the earlier portions of the 20th century. And what I think is this: Putting those five books together would sure make one heck of an LP.

"On one of the Fridays, Little Britches said she'd learned a poem by heart and wanted to give it as her party piece for Elocution. So Tansy let her, and we all settled back to listen as Little Britches sashayed to the center of the rostrum, gathered her hands, and elocuted in a high voice that rang like a little bell:

Adder in the desk drawer,
Aunt Fanny in the ditch;
Life here at Hominy Ridge
Surely is a---

"With an almighty thwack, Tansy brought her pointer down on the desk. Little Britches jumped.
" 'Who taught you that so-called verse?'
"Little Britches pointed me out and said, 'Russell Culver.' "

In 1904 Russell Culver is a fifteen-year-old farm boy living in rural Indiana, and is one of a half-dozen or so students readying for another year at Hominy Ridge School, when their mean, old teacher Miss Myrt Arbuckle up and dies.

"If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it. You know August. The corn is earring. The tomatoes are ripening on the vine. The clover's in full bloom. There's a little less evening now, and that's a warning. You want to live every day twice over because you'll be back in the jailhouse of school before the end of the month."

Hoping that perhaps they'll just close the school down, dreaming and scheming about taking off and riding the rails to Nebraska for the fall harvest in October, the last thing Russell expects to happen is for his big sister, Tansy, to not go away for her last year of high school as planned but, instead, to become their new teacher.

"The thought of Tansy having a look at my orthography brought me near to tears. It was almost the last thing you'd want a sister looking at."

THE TEACHER'S FUNERAL gives readers a look at the dawn of the automobile age. There's a noticeable difference in the America of Russell Culver from that--just twelve years later--of Howard Leland Hutchings, the fifteen-year-old we encounter in Richard Peck's last novel, the award-winning THE RIVER BETWEEN US.

But on the other hand, THE TEACHER'S FUNERAL has got a groove that fits right in with Peck's previous four novels: the humor, the chores, the vittles, the multigenerational cast of the good, the bad, and the ornery. And there's something about the way Richard Peck portrays his rural settings that makes me want to go stand outside in my goat pasture and breathe deeply.

"Me and Lloyd were up ahead of the chickens. We worked a seven-day week anyway, even in this quiet season. As Dad said, the only man who got his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe. And we were a corn, wheat, hay, and hogs farm in a never-ending round of chores, plus the milking."

You know how when a great old song comes on, and the first notes take you right back to when you were there experiencing it for the first time? Well, Richard Peck is always doing the same thing to me, and I wasn't even there in the first place!

Plenty of kids will relate to Russell's dilemma of suddenly having a bossy older sibling become a legitimate figure of authority. And readers will similarly identify with one or more of Russell's classmates, because there are so many things about being a student that just don't change.

" 'That howling only means but one thing,' Charlie remarked, 'and you know what."

It means that children's publishing's "The King" has done it once again.


Rating:
Summary: For YEAR DOWN YONDER fans
Review: Great book for the upper elementary/middle school age group. Told in true Richard Peck fashion. If you are a YONDER fan, you will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Comedy? Don't Make Me Laugh!
Review: I had to read this for an assignment at school. My group didn't laugh at all, but then when we had to make recomendations to tell others to read the book. That HAD to have been one of the hardest things in my life. Though it was well written, I'll give Richard points for that, but still, even though this book is meant for kids 11-15 it most probably will not interest the kid at all...

Rating:
Summary: As Always, Top Rating For Top Author
Review: I ordered this one back in July, and have been on the edge of my library seat wating for it! Well worth it, too--once again, Richard Peck delivers the type of story we have come to expect, and to appreciate, from him: human, real, funny, wry, and honest. My only complaint: Not enough! Seriously, for the age group he was targeting, the length is just right--but for middle-aged librarians... well, as usual, I put down anything "Peckish" with a sigh of bliss for the tale, and regret for its end. Please, more, and soon!

Rating:
Summary: Warm and funny!
Review: Richard Peck treats us with another down-home tale from the midwest. This one takes place exactly one century ago, in 1904 Indiana, "when automobiles began to burn up the rural byways. The year airships like boxkites began to darken the skies, though they hadn't found our patch of sky yet."

Russell Culver's sentiments run from ecstasy to despair when he learns that dreadful Miss Myrt, the schoolteacher, has succumbed to a sudden heart attack just before the beginning of the school year. No sooner is Miss Myrt laid to rest in the Balm of Gilead Cemetary than it becomes clear that her successor is going to be Russell's seventeen-year-old sister, Tansy, and all hope for closing the "Jailhouse of School" is dashed.

Miss Tansy proves to be a formidible and adept new schoolmarm, and Russell's dreams of escaping to the wheatfields of the Dakotas are the only thing that keep him sane. She is determined to prove herself worthy of a preliminary teaching credential and tolerates none of the hijinks that her brother and his pals might attempt to put in her way.

There is no shortage of suitors for the pert young teacher in these rural parts. Most promising is Eugene Hammond, a city slicker from Terra Haute who makes his entrance into town crashing his eight-cylinder "Bullet No. 2" racing car with the Culver family's buggy, sending the spinster Aunt Maud into a ditch. Mr. Hammond subsequently showers lavish gifts for the classroom upon Miss Tansy, all of which are inscribed, "Compliments of The Overland Automobile Company; Terra Haute--Indianapolis."

In the backdrop of this hilarious saga is the understated wisdom of O.C. Culver, Russell's Dad, a widower, who always seems to have a greater understanding of what is going on than his fifteen-year-old son had ever suspected. His warmth and depth of character is reminiscent of Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

This is a warm and refreshing read that will make you laugh out loud. Richard Peck is such a thorough researcher of the time period about which he writes that you can be assured that all the details, sentiments and nuances are authentic.