"Russell, will they have a funeral for Miss Myrt?"  Lloyd looked up at me, wondering.

"Of course they'll have a funeral for her," I said. "Did you think they'd just feed her to the hogs?"

But I know how Lloyd thought. Regular people have funerals, but Miss Myrt was a teacher. As for the funeral, it was hot weather and the crops were in the ground and the roads were dry and the fair was over. "What else do people have to do?" I said. "They'll turn out for Miss Myrt."

"They better," Lloyd said darkly. "She's liable to set up in her coffin and take roll."

15-year-old Russell Culver believes his dreams have come true with the death of the hated school teacher at his one-room school. In rural Indiana in 1904, teachers don't grow like corn, so surely, happily, Russell's days of schooling must be over. His dream of joining a harvest crew in the Dakotas is finally within reach.

Sadly for Russell, the replacement teacher turns out to be his worst nightmare. And his sister.

Written in the way only Richard Peck can, readers are magically transported back in time to life in a rural Indiana farming community. With humor, heart, and just-right historical detail, the intertwined lives of the characters come alive as if the first-person novel were a memoir instead of fiction.

If you like A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder, you'll love The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts.


Image from Anita Silvey's Children's Book-A-Day Almanac.