Book Talk

Author:  Richard Peck
Realist Fiction
Brittney Wells
11-27-2010



Richard Peck: A Great American Novelist of timeless piecesof art!



About the Author:

"I want to write novels that ask honest questions about serious issues.

A novel is never an answer; it's always a question." "I believe I have

one theme in all of my books and I want to get it across to all my

readers every time and that is this: You will never begin to grow up until

                                                                                               you declare your independence from your peers." "What me on a career as a writer? A mother who read to me before

 I could read, and teachers who never put a grade on a rough draft."  It is utterly impossible to settle on one quote and stop listening to Peck’s wisdom.  Peck is a Newberry award winning American novelist.  Moreover,Peck has won a multitude of  awards for his works.  His target audience is young adult and the genre includes:  horror, caper, mystery, occult, social commentary, comedy, realism and historical fiction.  Before writing, Peck taught school (English), and one might conclude he gives his former students credit for his success as a writer.  "Ironically, it was my students who taught me to be a writer, though I was hired to teach them.”   I find it hard to believe, however, Peck failed to teach.  He is constantly teaching even though he officially left the classroom to live by his hand.    Don't Look and It Won't Hurt was Pecks first work of art.  Peck graduated from high school in Decatur, IL, earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1956 at DePauw University, and then a master's degree at Southern Illinois University. 

Opinion of Book:                  

“Delightful!  - a true page turner-an all time favorite-A TIMELESS CLASSIC”

                                                                                               --------------------Brittney Wells

Character Synopsis/summary:

It is with humor and verve that Richard Peck, in his book, The Teacher’s Funeral, crafts the story of a young boy’s coming of age meshed with the coming of the new technological age of the early 1900’s (setting).  The town the novel took place in was Hominy Ridge. 

“If your teacher has to die, August isn’t a bad time for it,  ”says Russell Culver, the protagonist, who tells the story from a first person point of view.  Indeed, from the perspective of Russell; his younger brother, Lloyd; and his best friend, Charlie Pharr, the demise of their despised teacher, Miss Myrt Arbuckle could not have come at a better time.  They have high hopes that the Hominy Ridge School Board will not be able to secure a new teacher in time for the 1904-1905 school year.  However, much to their chagrin, the boy’s older sister, Tansy is hired as their new teacher.

It is no secret that Russell and Charlie see no point in furthering their education, as the two have plans to take off for the Dakotas to work on the new fangled, steel threshing machines on the vast farm lands prevalent in that area.  Russell’s dad is patient and wise when dealing with his son’s longings.  Aunt Maud, Russell’s deceased mother’s sister, serves as a surrogate mother and plays an essential role as a teacher in the novel; however, her importance is not evident until the end of the novel and is shocking to the reader. 

On the way home from Miss Myrt’s funeral, enter one Eugene Hammond whose Bullet race car almost mows down the Culver’s horse-drawn buckboard.  Here again, Peck meshes tradition with the coming of a new age.  Eugene is one of Tansy’s suitors, but in the end, he does not suit her.

As school takes up, we meet Glenn Tarbox (the only member of his family, as Peck would put it, to darken the door of the school) as well as the other students of the one room school house).  In addition to Russell, Lloyd, Charlie, and Glenn, the class includes Flopears, Pearl, Lester, and the youngest and most delightful Little Britches.

The last character of note is Aunt Fanny Hamline, who, at first glance, seems like nothing more than a nosey old biddy who is intent on bringing Tansy down.  Little do the readers know that she will become a teacher herself when she opens her heart and home to Glenn.  Even more, for Tansy’s formal observation, Aunt Fanny helps Tansy create a presentable classroom, one of which to be proud, when she donates a prized possession, her husband’s flag.

Throughout the school year, there are moments that will have the reader rolling, especially during times as entertaining as when Little Britches recites a slightly off-color rhyming verse.  Against Miss Tansy’s demands of reporting to class with the first dong of the tower bell, Russell and Lloyd (with their father’s “approval”) wind sheets tightly around the bell so it can not call them to class.  The boys are quite surprised when they hear the clear peel of a bell on the first morning (which is also known by Tansy’s father).  Again we see Mr. Culver’s quiet, gentle way of teaching his children and attending to their needs.  Furthermore, on the first day of school, smoke is smelled, alerting everyone to the fact that the privy is on fire (a direct result of Charlie and Russell’s early morning smoking of Buggy Whip). 

Tansy repays them by keeping them plenty busy at school.  When one of the Farboxes plants a little surprise in Tansy’s desk, causing quite a commotion, Tansy skillfully turns the disruption into a teachable moment.  Glenn and Russell almost blow up the school on the morning of Tansy’s all-important observation by the superintendant of schools, who is coming to determine her “fitness” as a teacher.  Tansy swears they intentionally tried to ruin her chances of approval and is “deaf to reason”.  Then there is the priceless moment when Little Britches proves she can put letters together to make words, and she writes, “See the fat man.” However, she also exhibits an extraordinary ability with numbers as she displays her multiplication skills.  That, along with Glenn’s impromptu science lesson and Tansy’s display of knowledge, leads the superintendent to pronounce Tansy qualified to teach.

Peck brings these characters and events to life with a hefty peppering of figurative language, personification (“The lamp in her hand hissed and spat.”  p 91), idioms (“It’s still summer said Lloyd, who never knew when to button his lip.”  p 60), similes (“as warm as July, too warm to be bound up like a mummy under my shirt.  p 68”), metaphors (the mush war ashes in my mouth p 61), alliterations (Sweet Singer of Sycamore Township), hyperboles (“Then farmers drove the dogs through the nettle hedge so they were scalded and scraped all at once and ready to be gutted and carved into cutlets and tongues.”), and sensory imagery (“As warm as July, too warm to be bound up like a mummy under my shirt.  The hedges burgeoned, and the fields were heavy with bounty.  It was an evening to inspire songs in praise of Indiana, of moonlight fair along the Wabash and the breath of new-mown hay from the fields and candlelight gleaming through sycamores.”  P 68)

And in the final chapter, Peck understands that he must give his readers a glimpse into the futures of the characters his readers have come to know and love.  Is everyone successful, as we would hope, or is there a failure in the group?  Read this captivating novel to find out!

Highlight:

            “When Miss Tansy’s students come to a crossroads, which path do they take?  What are the influences of their decision? ”   Who said it takes a whole village to raise a village?

Hook, Line, and sinker:   

And in the final chapter, Peck understands that he must give his readers a glimpse into the futures of the characters his readers have come to know and love.  Is everyone successful, as we would hope, or is there a failure in the group?  Read this captivating novel to find out!

More later-------------------------