"If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," says Russell Culver, fifteen, who's raring to light out for the endless skies of the Dakotas to join a team of harvesters working the new 1904 all-steel threshing machines. School's only standing in the way of his Dakota dreams. Maybe now with his teacher in the ground, Hominy Ridge School will shut down for good.
No such luck. Russell and his schoolmates - Pearl, Flopears, Little Britches and the whole bunch - are about to be ruled by a new teacher who's Russell's worst nightmare.
Despite stolen supplies, rustic vandalism, a blazing boys' privy, and more snakes than you can shake a stick at, the new teacher will keep the school afloat and set Russell on a new course entirely.
As he did in A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, Richard Peck here creates a whole world of folksy, one-of-a-kind characters in his funniest novel yet. There will be no forgetting Russell, his new teacher, and all the inmates of Hominy Ridge School, on both sides of the teacher's desk."
A master of middle-grade historical fiction, Peck packs this book with history, quirky characters, humor, and poignancy. In turn-of-the-century Indiana, 15-year-old Russell dreams of escaping the dreary boredom of the one-room schoolhouse by jumping a train to the Dakotas. To his horror, his bossy, no-nonsense older sister has become the town's new teacher, and she is determined to see him finish high school. In a seamless performance, Dylan Baker becomes Russell. He convincingly brings each character to life, turning a great story into an even greater listening experience. This book is so laugh-out-loud funny that its depth sneaks up almost by surprise. E.S. 2005 ALA Notable Recording (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
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