A Year Down Yonder
I am very close with my grandmother, we talk on the phone about once a week and I tell her everything. I love to go and visit her because she always tells old funny stories about our family, stories that I love to hear over and over again. Plus she gives me the best advice!
In A Year Down Yonder Mary Alice and her Grandma Dowdel’s relationship changes throughout the entire novel. Trace their relationship.
Why didn’t Grandma Dowdel go to the school sponsored Christmas program?
Do you think their relationship will be close or severed at the end of the book? Give me specific examples on what you think will happen.
7 Comments
November 11th, 2011 at 2:10 am
The first one I don’t know but I’m going to take a guess. My guess is because either because she stopped school in eighth grade or because Mary Alice wasn’t in it. I think the relationship will close and one example is that grandma and Mary Alice will go fun places together and will talk together when they have spare time.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:11 pm
I don’t want to be a spoiler so I won’t tell about parts in the book, but I am going to tell about some bad parts that were confusing that you might have read! I think that over all the book was confusing and it was hard to like the book cause half of the time I couldn’t understand it so it was hard to enjoy. Part of the problem was that in one chapter so many different things were happening. Or that in one chapter it might be May then the next chapter it would be June. I don’t think it was a very bad book but it was a good topic, setting, and theme. I wish I could have understood it because that wwould have made the expieriernce better.
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Eva, I am sorry the book was so confusing, but I am glad you still enjoyed the theme of the book. I would love to hear what you thought about Mary Alice and Grandma Dowdel’s relationship. How did their relationship change as the book progressed?
November 21st, 2011 at 9:12 pm
I think that Grandma is very cold, harsh, and unwilling in the very beginning. Near the middle she starts getting use to Mary Alice and looking at the bright side of her, but still is pretty harsh. What I think will happen is that Grandma will loosen up a bit and get use to taking care of Mary Alice. I think that the reason that Grandma did not go to the Christmas Program was because she may have underestimated how important it was.
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Wyatt, you are right about Grandma being harsh, I did not like her very much in the beginning of the book. But as the book progressed I began to see a great relationship unfold between her and Mary Alice. I was so glad at the end of the book, it was a nice ending!
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:51 pm
As the book progressed they were getting to know eachother well and that always helps bond a granma and her granddaughter. I like that Mary Alice was looking out for her grandmother and that was sweet of her to do. I think that at the end her grandmother sent her away because she wanted the best for Mary Alice.
I think grandma didn’t go to the school Christmas program because she might have thought that Mary Alice would have gotten teased because of her grandmother.
At the end of the book their relationship was really close because Mary Alice had about never seen her grandma. Mary Alice probablly felt like they might not ever see eachother again or that she was losing one of her dear friends.
Eva
November 28th, 2011 at 12:10 am
I was in the book club with Eva and Wyatt and our book club all agreed that this was definitely not a fun book to read. But, over all the confusion I thought that book was an ok read.
I don’t have a clue why Grandma didn’t want to go to the christmas program so I am just going to take a guess. My guess is that maybe she didn’t wait to be seen in public and was not really into Christmas. I also agree with Wyatt about how GRandma might of underestimated of how much it actually meant and how much Mary ALice cared about the play.
I don’t want to give anything away for those who haven’t read the ending yet. I will answer the question you gave to Eva though. I think that their relationship changed a lot through the book. At the beginning of the book Grandma didn’t really ignowledge Mary Alice and talk to her. All she did was pretty much bark orders at her. As the book progressed I could see that the bond between them was changing into a nice one. At the end of the book I could really tell that Mary Alice cares about Grandma and doesn’t want her to get hurt.
Over all I give this book a 3 star rating.