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    The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts
    Unavailable
    The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts
    Unavailable
    The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts

    Written by Richard Peck

    Narrated by Dylan Baker

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The year is 1904, and Russell is 15. Though he dreams of leaving small-town Indiana to become part of a large farm crew in the Dakotas, he's forced to stay in school, where his sister Tansy has just become the new teacher. Through the autumn, Russell observes the strange goings-on in the classroom, including a fight for Tansy's affection between a rough-and-tumble guy named Glenn and Russell's own best friend, Charlie. (Both will need to compete with a city slicker named Eugene who's in the area trying to sell an amazing new invention called the automobile.) By Thanksgiving, Tansy has become a full-fledged teacher and Russell has resigned himself to the student life. In the last chapter, we learn which man ultimately won Tansy's heart, and also who Russell ended up marrying.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 23, 2004
    ISBN9781400091041
    Unavailable
    The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts
    Author

    Richard Peck

    "I spent the first eighteen years of my life in Decatur, Illinois, a middle-American town in a time when teenagers were considered guilty until proven innocent, which is fair enough. My mother read to me before I could read to myself, and so I dreamed from the start of being a writer in New York. But Decatur returned to haunt me, becoming the "Bluff City" of my four novels starring Alexander Armsworth and Blossom Culp. When I was young, we were never more than five minutes from the nearest adult, and that solved most of the problems I write about for a later generation living nearer the edge. The freedoms and choices prematurely imposed upon young people today have created an entire literature for them. But then novels are never about people living easy lives through tranquil times; novels are the biographies of survivors. "I went to college in Indiana and then England, and I was a soldier in Germany -- a chaplain's assistant in Stuttgart -- ghost-writing sermons and hearing more confessions than the clergy. In Decatur we'd been brought up to make a living and not to take chances, and so I became an English teacher, thinking this was as close to the written word as I'd be allowed to come. And it was teaching that made a writer out of me. I found my future readers right there in the roll book. After all, a novel is about the individual within the group, and that's how I saw young people every day, as their parents never do. In all my novels, you have to declare your independence from your peers before you can take that first real step toward yourself. As a teacher, I'd noticed that nobody ever grows up in a group. "I wrote my first line of fiction on May 24th, 1971 -- after seventh period. I'd quit my teaching job that day, liberated at last from my tenure and hospitalization. At first, I wrote with my own students in mind. Shortly, I noticed that while I was growing older every minute at the typewriter, my readers remained mysteriously the same age. For inspiration, I now travel about sixty thousand miles a year, on the trail of the young. Now, I never start a novel until some young reader, somewhere, gives me the necessary nudge.. "In an age when hardly more than half my readers live in the same homes as their fathers, I was moved to write Father Figure. In it a teenaged boy who has played the father-figure role to his little brother is threatened when they are both reunited with the father they hardly know. It's a novel like so many of our novels that moves from anger to hope in situations to convince young readers that novels can be about them... "I wrote Are You in the House Alone? when I learned that the typical victim of our fastest growing, least-reported crime, rape, is a teenager -- one of my own readers, perhaps. It's not a novel to tell young readers what rape is. They already know that. It's meant to portray a character who must become something more than a victim in our judicial system that defers to the criminal... "Two of my latest attempts to keep pace with the young are a comedy called Lost in Cyberspace and its sequel, The Great Interactive Dream Machine. Like a lot of adults, I noticed that twelve year olds are already far more computer-literate than I will ever be. As a writer, I could create a funny story on the subject, but I expect young readers will be more attracted to it because it is also a story about two friends having adventures together. There's a touch of time travel in it, too, cybernetically speaking, for those readers who liked sharing Blossom Culp's exploits. And the setting is New York, that magic place I dreamed of when I was young in Decatur, Illinois..." More About Richard Peck Richard Peck has written over twenty novels, and in the process has become one of America's most highly respected writers for young adults. A versatile writer, he is beloved by middle graders as well as young adults for his mysteries and coming-of-age novels. He now lives in New York City. In addition to writing, he spends a great deal of time traveling around the country attending speaking engagements at conferences, schools and libraries... Mr. Peck has won a number of major awards for the body of his work, including the Margaret A. Edwards Award from School Library Journal, the National Council of Teachers of English/ALAN Award, and the 1991 Medallion from the University of Southern Mississippi. Virtually every publication and association in the field of children s literature has recommended his books, including Mystery Writers of America which twice gave him their Edgar Allan Poe Award. Dial Books for Young Readers is honored to welcome Richard Peck to its list with Lost in Cyberspace and its sequel The Great Interactive Dream Machine... Twenty Minutes a Day by Richard Peck Read to your children Twenty minutes a day; You have the time, And so do they. Read while the laundry is in the machine; Read while the dinner cooks; Tuck a child in the crook of your arm And reach for the library books. Hide the remote, Let the computer games cool, For one day your children will be off to school; Remedial? Gifted? You have the choice; Let them hear their first tales In the sound of your voice. Read in the morning; Read over noon; Read by the light of Goodnight Moon. Turn the pages together, Sitting close as you'll fit, Till a small voice beside you says, "Hey, don't quit." copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

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    Reviews for The Teacher's Funeral

    4/5

    225 ratings29 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Richard Peck writes historical fiction and life in a rural community. He is best known for the Newbery Award winning book "A Year Down Yonder".

      This book is set in the early 1900's and follows the lives of the Culvers; Russell, Lloyd & their older sister, Tansy, who upon the death of "old maid" Miss Myrt, has become the local school teacher.

      School life was strict, but now that Tansy has moved home, life at home has become stricter....

      In my opinion, the attempt at humor in this book failed....nor did I find the characters likable. I really didn't even care.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book-not only as a reader, but as a writer. Great mentor text for character building!
    • 4/5
      Russell wants to quit school, and thinks he has a chance after the old teacher dies. Then his sister becomes the new teacher at their rural one-room schoolhouse.
    • 5/5
      Delightful, humorous, story telling ; developed believable, endearing, memorable characters.
    • 5/5
      Life in rural, backwoods Indiana in 1904 has its trials and tribulations for the students at Hominy Ridge School. A one room school of eight grades.

      When Miss Myrt Arbuckle suddenly drops dead during the summer break in August, the kids get their hopes up of the school closing and freedom from learning. The school board has other ideas and hires Tansy Culver as the new teacher. She may not have her certificate for teaching and still be in high school, but she is determined to get the kids to learn their ABCs, numbers, geography and more. She has chalk dust in her veins and this is her chance.

      Privy fire, snakes hidden in the classroom, cold weather and wood stove are just a few of the things she has to contend with, along with the odd assortment of students in her small class.

      Russell Culver tells the story well and brings all the people to life along with the humour and colour of the time.

      An enjoyable read for adults as well as kids. With discussion questions listed in the back, both could read it together and talk about it.
    • 4/5
      Although I found the book to be quite funny and a refreshing step back into the olden days of rural Hoosier life, I am sure my students would not understand the tongue in cheek humor and the loveliness of hard won progress. Well done.
    • 4/5
      Russell Culver thinks things are starting to look up when his horrid teacher, Miss Mert, drops dead. But when his 17-year-old sister, Tansy, promptly steps into the teacher's shoes to run the school (of 8 students, grades k-8) for the coming year, things have taken a turn for the worse. A variety of young men, both students and adults, try to woo Tansy, and Russell is disgusted by the whole thing. Lots of humor in this little book... and the last sentence just capped it all off perfectly for me.
    • 3/5
      I like this book. It had lots of humor. 15 year old Russell Culver has an interesting perspective on his turn of the century world.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this one, though I didn't suspect I would. It was the story of a teacher trying to get established and do a difficult job despite not finishing high school or having any formal training. She faces every challenge creatively, and the narrator, her younger brother, begrudgingly admits that she does a great job despite his reluctance to even be in school. It's definitely a different take on a lot of things, but especially looking at what it really means to take the lead and educate.
    • 5/5
      This book was by far not what I expected! It was a placed in the early 1900's and school was not a priority of the people. The teacher of school died in August and two of the pupils the Russell and Lloyd Culver just knew they would not to have to go to school anymore because there is no way that they can find a teacher to replace Mrs. Mryt before school starts. Much to their surprise their older sister Tansy took the job. They just knew this would be their worst nightmare and began to try to play pranks on her to ruin her career, but as the school year continued they ended up wanting her to be successful and receive her teaching license. It is a good book that reflects how families always stick together and help each other out. Being written in the early 1900's the dialect is much different and when a car came through town that made the front page of the paper! It was a really good book and once I picked it up I couldn't stop reading it. I finished it the same day I started!
    • 5/5
      In this book, Richard Peck takes us back to the days of one-room schoolhouses. When Russell Culver's teacher dies just before school starts in August 1904, he has dreams of leaving school and going to the Dakotas to get work using the new threshing machines. But little does he know that Hominy Ridge School is getting a new teacher, one who will keep him and his friends in line and capture their hearts. Peck vividly creates a sense of time and place. His characters are likeable - the type that you'll root for. Little Britches (who got her name after coming out of the outhouse with her skirt tucked in her britches) was one of my favorites. I found myself smiling as the adventures unfolded, especially at the end of the book. Richard Peck is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.
    • 4/5
      Good book. Very interesting, and funny
    • 4/5
      Audience: Grades 6 and Up The end of summer is similar to a time of mourning to many children. They see the end of long, sunny days as the death of fun and freedom. Students feel powerless against the unstoppable reality of back to school. What happens, however, when the only person qualified to teach dies in August? For the children at Hominy Ridge School, the death of Miss Myrt Arbuckle is the hope for summer resurrected. Russell Culver, the narrator, sees the passing of his teacher as a mercy to the lady herself, who was past her prime and could not even deliver a good whooping, and a miracle to the kids in town. Miss Arbuckle’s timing, according to Russell, is perfect. With such short notice, who would agree to come to teach at “an out-of-date, unimproved, one-room country schoolhouse in the backwoodsiest corner of Indiana”? To Russell’s surprise, however, a new teacher is secured. His very own older sister, Tansy, known for her strict ways at home, has taken the challenge of teaching a motley crew of eight students with varying ages and levels of ability. One scheme after the other, Russell attempts to thwart his sister’s teaching efforts while he plans his own escape to the Dakotas. Between spelling bees and geography quizzes, Russell tries to make sense of a world in which his big and awkward sister has suitors lining up the schoolhouse door, cars start to change the rural American landscape, and he must finally face his responsibilities as an older brother. Richard Peck’s The Teacher’s Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts is a light-hearted account of country life in Indiana in the beginning of the 20th century. The reader sees the world through the eyes of Russell, the 15-year-old narrator who dreams of running away to the Dakotas. His days are filled with the joys of a simple life—camping, fishing, playing tricks on his siblings, helping his father with the work of the farm, and hoping for a life of freedom away from the family. Like any teenager, Russell yearns for a life free of the discipline enforced at home by his sister Tansy, but as the story develops, he learns about his own responsibilities within the family. Soon, running away becomes a distant memory in face of his new position as his brother’s role model. His confusion in face of his veiled animosity towards Eugene, the slick city guy with intentions towards Tansy, sends a clear message to the reader: even without his awareness, Russell is protective of his sister and the life they live in the farm. The Dakotas stand no chance; family comes first. The Teacher’s Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts is a book about family and the bond that keeps it together. Mischief and plotting bring laughter to the audience, and the dark side of life never casts a shadow in the idyllic living of the characters. The Culvers are a tight lot. Even when bickering, they know what matters most—the happiness and safety of the family. In the end, Russell’s desire to undermine his sister’s teaching efforts give way to an acknowledgement of her talents and a hope for her success. The happy end brings together the boys and girls of Hominy Ridge School now as men and women who found success in both professional and personal lives. In the end, hard work pays off, country people stick together, and the sacrifices made out of love shape the world into a better place. Real life is not always like this, but maybe it should be.
    • 3/5
      What a joy to read another book by this Newbery award winning author. He has a simple way of painting delightful images that lift off the pages and delicately enter your soul.This is a folksy, funny and at times hilarious tale of Russell Culver, his friends and family at the turn of the century in the rural mid west.When the one room school teacher, mean spirited, hand smacking Miss Myrt Arbuckle dies, Russell and his friends are relieved. Their joy is short lived when they learn that Russell's sister Tansy will be the new teacher.This is a wonderful story of life in the slow lane, when the color of the bright fall leaves was noted and appreciated, when the mutt tagged along down the dirt lanes, loyally wagging his tail, when peaches were ripe and apples were a treasure, when fathers magically predicted a son's behavior, when adults were respected and children minded their P's and Q's, especially when taught by your sister.
    • 5/5
      Russell Culver thinks it's a miracle at first - his meaner-than-a-snake schoolteacher drops dead right before school is ready to start. But it turns out that it's not the blessing he thought it would be. Who takes the teacher's place but his own bossy big sister Tansy? And since she's in charge, she's not about to take any lip from her younger brothers.He has to admit that she's working hard for her pay. She even visits the trashy Tarbox clan, trying to get one extra student for the school which will be the magic number eight they need to stay open. Russell's hopes are dashed when 16 year old Glen Tarbox shows up the first day of school. He can't read or write, but he's ready to learn. Especially if it means being closer to Miss Tansy.But Glen has a rival - Russell's best friend Charlie is sweet on the teacher, too. And so is city slicker Eugene from the auto company. But Tansy is set on keeping her school going, despite nasty pranks and a school inspection.This book was really funny in parts. I listened to it on tape, and I think that's the best way to read it. I loved the eulogy of Miss Myrt Arbuckle, the story of JW the dog's encounter with the porcupine, and the fire than nearly demolished the boy's privy. So funny! But it's also a wonderful slice of life of a small town and farm community in Indiana in 1904, when the train containing the latest farm equipment was the high point of the summer, better than the county fair, and when pig butchering was a community event. And at the end, the author came on saying it was dedicated to his 98 year old mother who attended just such a school in rural Indiana at the turn of the century. Great fun. 4.5 stars
    • 4/5
      Entertaining family story. Especially good for someone who already has an appreciation of life in a bygone era.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyable, laughable, silly at times
    • 4/5
      Young Russell's hopes of quitting school and leaving home to work on a farm after the death of his teacher are challenged when his older sister takes the job. He learns the value of education, and grows to appreciate his friends, family, and place in life more. The book does a very good job at recreating the setting, bringing readers back to rural 1904. Details of technology, such as farm equipment and cars, help make the setting vivid and help the reader to relate more easily to it.
    • 4/5
      Russell wants to quit school, and thinks he has a chance after the old teacher dies. Then his sister becomes the new teacher at their rural one-room schoolhouse.
    • 5/5
      Wow! Just wow. I had no idea I would love this book like I did. Set is rural Indiana at the turn of the century, this story is about growing up while attending a one-room school house. It's funny, it's well-written, it's interesting - it's just a great story. I went out and bought several copies to give to my in-laws as well as to my father. I don't know how well received this would be by junior high kids, but it's a great book for adults - especially older adults.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this. It's a little like "To Kill a Mockingbird", folksy and sweet - but without the importance.
    • 4/5
      In rural Indiana, in 1904, fifteen-year-old Russell's dreams of quitting school and joining a wheat-threshing crew are disrupted when his older sister takes over the teaching of his one-room schoolhouse after mean old Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies."
    • 3/5
      This was cute. I enjoyed this story, it was simple but funny and entertaining. I would like to read more of Mr. Peck's books to see if they are as good.
    • 3/5
      Genre: Realistic FictionReview: This is a great book of realistic fiction because it is likely to have happened at some point. The setting and characters are well developed and it seems as thought the book could be biography. The dreams that young Russell has are similar to many young boys during that setting and time period.
    • 5/5
      This is one of the funniest books I have every read! Richard Peck is a master at character development and wry humor.
    • 5/5
      I just love Peck's niche of midwestern, old-timey stories. The voice is so clear. I read this as a read-aloud to my class and had a great time with the accents. The action is low-key but with enough peaks to maintain interest, though the start took a lot of interpreting to fifth graders. They loved the last line, the suspense through that last chapter (who was the successful suitor?) and the surprise matches. I would read it aloud again!
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful book--had laugh-out-loud parts! My grandmother taught in a one-room school and parts of this book really rang true to her stories. I liked the characters and really cared about them by the time the book ended.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely sterling audio rendition by Dylan Baker made this fun to listen to. Turn of the century life in rural Indiana is related through the eyes of a nine (?) year old boy who attends a one room school house. Lots of country in this story. "As cold as charity" and "Well, skin me for a polecat" and "we shared out and he got a peach off me" make the voice authentic. This is humorous and almost anecodotal and incidental or reminscent in the telling.
    • 5/5
      Peck is great...this is a children's book, but I think he is one of those authors that appeals to all ages. The book is set during the time of one-room schoolhouses and is about a boy whose teacher dies. The new teacher is...his older sister. I laughed out loud several times and recommend it to everyone.