Remembering the Good Times

Reader reviewed by Dan M.

The book Remembering the Good Times is a depressing story about a teenage suicide. This book has some good times and bad/boring times. Buck is a sixteen-year-old boy who tells about his younger childhood about his three best friends Kate, Polly, and Trav. Buck first meets Kate in an orchard owned by Polly which happens to be the third oldest person in Slocum. Polly is a mean, old, grouchy lady in Slocum Township. In 7th grade they meet Trav a smart boy who is very smart in academics and is concerned in world situations. This group would be close sharing the good and bad times. Polly, Kate, Buck, and Trav would all play games on the card table theyd set up especially for Polly since she always sat in a wheel chair. This group will have memories from a play to fights and directing musicals to summer vacations. During school some changes happened to the trio (Buck, Trav, and Kate) like the change to junior high school to a middle school. Now in high-school they have four grades instead of three grades. Buck always hated changes and thought that they should never change because he always liked the way things were. Suddenly when Trav comes back he gives everybody presents, but hes really changed and that change would corrupt the group forever. I have enjoyed this book and I thought it would end differently then it actually did. Once or twice this book touched me because I have had a friend who died, but he did not take his own life on purpose.

Reader reviewed by Carrie S.

Remembering the Good Times by Richard Peck was a well written book. Travis is one of the main characters who found problems in the world that could not be solved. His dearest friends were Kate, Buck, and Polly. No one saw such a treacherous act coming. Travis, suffering from failed attempts to fly, ended up hanging himself in Kates orchard. Like I mentioned before, the author, Richard Peck, did an excellent job writing this novel. To begin with, it explains a sensitive subject, teenage suicide. Would the average person ever think that a straight A student that comes from a well known family commit suicide? No. This is what makes the book unique. An average person would never think of a kid like Travis to commit suicide. The author managed to make it happen though.
Richard Peck also has a variety of characters. You go from the meanest person in town, Polly, to the most sensitive person in town, Travis. Buck, another main character, is slightly shy. Buck was Travis best friend. Kate, another main character who was Travis best friend, has more responsibilities than an average teenager. She cares for her Great Aunt Polly and her mom is never around. These are the four characters that make up this novel. Examples of the other characters would be Skeeter, Rusty Hazenfield, and Sherrie Slater. These three people were mentioned mostly when it came time for Travis, Buck, and Kate to go to school. Richard Peck helped describe Kate, Buck, but mostly Travis characteristics by having Skeeter, Rusty, and Mrs. Slater come into the novel. To summarize, it helped a lot to have such a variety of characters. I would suggest that teenagers especially, read this well written novel. Great lessons will be learned.

Reader reviewed by Phillip P.

This summary is about the book called Remembering the Good Times by Richard Peck. This is a really good book to my beliefs and my opinion. The narrator is Buck and hes a really good guy in my opinion. Also the characters are Kate, a nice girl, Travis, the smart guy, they are Bucks best friends. Skeeter, the class bully, Mrs. Slater, is the teacher, and Polly, Kates great grandmother.
Buck lives in a trailer behind a Sunoco gas station that belongs to Irene and Scotty. And Kate lives down the road and Travis lives on the highway. There was a fight after school in the book between Buck and Skeeter. The cause of the fight was that Skeeter stole Bucks Hardhat that belonged to his dad.
Travis mentioned that he was a hyperactive kid in his younger years. But after a couple years, Travis later commits SUICIDE!!!!!! In other words, he kills himself. Rusty is a girl who is looking for a date for the homecoming dance. And she chooses Buck.
Kate was going with Travis but he was dead.
Later the people decide to bury Travis but his parents want to take his body to his hometown. So all of Travs friends go with them and bury him. They will always remember the good times with Trav before he killed himself. Kate and Buck will never have a good friend like Trav in a million times, in other words, in a lifetime. There is the summary.

Reader reviewed by Dylan Tunheim

Dylan Tunheim

I thought remembering the good times was the worst book.i have ever read it was slow paced and there was no story line to it I thought travis would die soon in the book so that everybody would learn a lesson. But no because he had to die at the end travis was the worst character because he acted like an adult all the time there wasnt time to be a kid like everybody else. I didnt care for the way the characters acted because they acted like the 50s that time period not the 2000s if they would have made this story a little more fast paced they would have made a pretty good but there attempt was a total failure nobody wants to read about a old lady in solcum like polly. I think they should have made travis come from a bad family and that would be better than what they have now for travis. And they should of made them a little bit older at the beginning of the story that would have made it better but in the long run a suicide is killing yourself because of self pain on the inside or it can be on the outside or it can just be coming from a bad family and not getting enough attention. Travis was the guy everyone counted on and he didnt want to be that person he didnt like being in regular classes because he felt that he was wasting his talents. I would not recommend having someone read RTGT because it is not a story for school.

Reader reviewed by Lisa K

Remembering the Good Times by Richard Peck was an interesting book but held the truths for people in the real world. This story told about kids who had to face challenges through life, such as bullies, different living conditions, and knowing you dont always know what your friends are going through.

In the book, Buck, Kate, and Trav meet in each other in the eighth grade and get to know each other in the eighth grade. Trav, now is a very wealthy, worried, brilliant young man that is very stressed with things happening in the world, mainly in Middle America.

As the trio comes close together, they begin to try to stay close together even more than before though, Buck goes away the summer after eighth grade and comes back to find a lot of change, which he doesnt like. He finds that he, himself has changed over that times as well and tells Kate, that they should promise not to change.

Later, Trav and Kate become kind of popular as they become more active through the school. Trave becomes in more electives, Buck begins a job outside of school and Kate trys out for a play with a poem Trav wrote,
The days of winter enter in
The darkness nibbles at the days,
The heavy clouds pull down the sky,
The deep snowfall strays and grays.

Too long to wait for springtime now
Here in this cold and darkening room,
Only time for remembering
The pear trees in bloom.

After that Trav starts throwing signs of distress, for example, Trav and Buck were watching Kate rehearsing and Buck says something like, When shes famous, we can say we knew her first. Later he gives some of his possessions away like a lilly to Polly, a bear to Kate, and a calculator to Buck.

Then when Buck and Kate go to school Trav hangs himself in the orchards and Buck and Kate are in some what of a schock and dont believe it.

The school board has a program for the community about Trav and Kate and Buck grieve it out during that time knowing how Trave would never come back again.

Those are some of the main reasons why Remembering the Good Times is an interesting book.

Reader reviewed by Austin

I think the book Remembering the good times is a really pointless book. I think some pages were pointless because some didnt make any sense. An example is Travis killed himself because he thought his teacher and his parents were not challenging him enough. In chapter 14 and 15. Travis is a character in the book.

There are some other characters I want to introduce to you so here they are. Buck, Kate, Travis, Bucks dad, Kates mom, Sketer, and Fred. Buck is the most important in the book. And also Bucks the one who tells this story.

Kate is a really nice girl who meets Buck a boulevard and they become best friend except Travis. Skater is really smart lid but he thinks he can beat up Buck but Buck is way bigger and stronger. Skater only ways 180 pounds and 5 feet something with brown hair.

Buck lives with both of his parents and he went to live with his mom in the summer in California and Travis was hanging out with Kate all summer long. So Kate and Travis liked each other. Travis and Buck were really good friends but when they were hanging out with Kate they get in a big fight at his party. They go over to Pollys house and try on some Halloween costumes. So they go in her house and try on clothes for a big Halloween party and a big bomb fire. Kate has this big old pink gown and Travis tries on this brown suite with this thing around his solder.

Reader reviewed by Kaia H.

To be honest, I definitely hated the book. At some parts, I felt like I had to low of a comprehension level to understand it. And at other parts, I felt like they thought I was stupid. The author also needed to be a lot more descriptive. The words were dull and boring. I see how if the author used too many descriptive words it would be difficult to read, but there were hardly any. I bet the book would have gotten a better review if he (the author) would have only taken five more minutes to change the word cool to awesome. Another point I have is that the book didnt really interest me. I like mystery and humor books, not dull books about kids who sit around and play cards. Maybe people who have no friends, sit in a desk all day, and get straight As might like this book, but I strongly dislike it. Although, I believe that my grandma might actually like this one. This book just is not for me. I mean, some of the parts in the book were sad and almost made me cry, but there were other parts that I just thought were stupid. Example: Every day Trav. And I would head over to Kates house to play cards. What is the point of that? Nothing ever happened when they were playing cards. It made no sense to write that. I didnt tell you that after that sentence there was a heck of a lot of other words that described what games they played and who won them. I dont really care about that, because it is not like they ended going to the big league. That book is just kind of an oldie. I guess that I will just repeat myself, I hated it!

Reader reviewed by Amanda W

Remembering the Good Times is a great book to read. In Remembering the Good Times it starts from the beginning of Kate, Buck, and Travs friendship. Throughout the book it shows the forming, fun, and hardships of friendship. Kate and Buck met in the woods, and then they met Trav in school during the seventh grade. They learned that Trav is the biggest worrywart. He sort of blew things out of proportion sometimes. Though Trav gave many signs of him committing suicide, Kate, Buck, Polly, nor anyone else ever noticed anything or took it too seriously.
There were many unique things about each of them. For example, Trav, he lives with his parents who are lawyers. His room was made up of childish doll figures, teddy bears, and rocket blankets, that was part of what made him unique. Kate on the other hand is pretty and the only girl of the group, with the exception of Polly of course. Kate is not very close to her mother, though, she mostly lives with her grandmother Polly, and is responsible of taking care of her. Polly is almost part of the gang too because she often plays games with them after school. Buck on the other hand lives with his father in a small cluttered trailer home. He does well in school and loves his friends, especially Kate who he secretly is attracted to. So as you can see they are completely different people, yet their friendship could last a lifetime.
This book was great. I was really interested. Maybe in some way I could relate to the characters. I would give this book a five, because I got into the book right away and often struggled putting the book down.

Reader reviewed by Shay D

Remembering the Good Times

This is a touching and meaningful book story of three friends- Kate, Buck, and Trav. They share a bond like no other. Everything is going jolly in Kates and Bucks minds, but, for Trav, it is different.
Maybe he felt like life was not going anywhere for him or he was not worth living. I think that he has it all going for him; he just did not know how to do more for others and himself.
Many kids and adults every day commit suicide every year. Something is wrong with their life and they dont know how to deal with it.
I quote from the book- & suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. &one suicide can lead to more.
Why is that? Maybe more people think that since another person ended their problems easily, they can too. Then, after awhile, more and more people commit suicide. It really is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. So why would someone end their life? All problems evolve eventually, but once you are dead, you are dead for good. You hurt everyone who ever cared about you and you influence other to take their lives as well.
I think that anyone who loves a true reality story about real life situations should read this book. Also if you are thinking of taking your life, you should read this to realize how it would impact people who care about you. Maybe you would realize that more people care about you than you think.
I believe that suicide is not the option and I wish I could do something to help those who feel it is their only option.

Reader reviewed by Kara T.

These Things happen Every Day, We Just Dont Know about It;
Remembering the Good Times
I thought the book, Remembering the Good Times (RTGT) by Richard Peck was an excellent book. The book was amazing even though Trav commits suicide.
Buck, the main character in this story, meets Kate in an orchard. Kate asks Buck if he wanted to see a foal being born. Next Kate and Buck went to watch the foal be born, the vet. did not seem to mind that they were there though. After that Buck thought he would never see Kate again.
Later in the day Buck was helping Irene and Scotty pick tomatoes. Irene asked buck to bring some to Mrs. Prior down the road. While he was down there, Mrs. Prior, Kates great aunt told him that she was too mean to die.
Buck had to go back to Farnham to live with his mother when Fred Wundrelich told him that they were moving to Cleveland. Buck argued his way into living with his father in Slocum.
When Buck and Kate go to school they meet Trav. Skeeter, the bully always goes wild at the new and weak teachers. After Skeeter sits down from attacking Mrs. Slater, Trav goes over, calmly lays his hands on Skeeters and everyone is calm for the rest of the period, until the bell rings.
Around Christmas Kate and Buck get invited to Travs parents Christmas Party. While at the party Trav gives Kate and Buck a tour of his house. When they get to his room they were expecting High-Tec stuff and computers. When they got inside the door it was full of toys.
I guess we all should have known when Trav was going to kill himself. Trav had given Kate his Teddy Bear and Buck his calculator. The next day Bucks dad was going to work on Pollys orchard, which she sold. They found Trav in a little clearing with a rope around his neck, and the other end tied to a tree. Trav had hanged himself. I think he did it because he was pushing on himself so much. It was self pressure; he thought he had push himself so hard for his parents to except him. There was no funeral for Trav, but there was a little meeting for the people who wanted to go, just for people to stop worrying. He is in a better place now.