Remembering the Good Times

Reader reviewed by Tanner H

I did not like the book Remembering the Good Times because, it was boring. Also it had to do with death and young people dying. I didnt like how they changed from being young to older in the middle of the book, it confused me a lot. The book is sort of like Heart of a Champion, another book that has to do with young people dying. People that would like to read Remembering the Good Times are ones that like sad, complicated books. The book started out with Buck meeting Kate in a field. They saw a snake hole, than Kate brought Buck over to another place where a calf was being born. They started school and meet Travis. Travis stood up for Sherrie Slater, the teacher, when Skeeter Calhoun threw all of the teachers books and papers on the floor. Also he emptied her purse out. Skeeter also stole Bucks dads hardhat. Buck and Skeeter fought and Skeeter beat Buck up. Then Sherrie Slaters husband beat Buck up at a Halloween party. Polly, Travis, Kate and Buck all played cards together, and Polly was the meanest person in Slocum. Later in the book Travis killed himself. After that Polly Prior made a speech about Traviss death and Buck Mendenhall sobbed. They all went to school a gain and everybody respected them more than ever. They looked at Buck and Kate differently. Now that they new their best friend died. A kid stood up and asked why they dont have a moment of silence or school days off. I didnt like the book.

Reader reviewed by Taylor R.

We read the book Remembering the Good Times, by Richard Peck. I thought it would be a sad, boring book with kids that dont have any control over their lives; so I was debating to read it. The book started off ok it was sort of cute how Buck and Kate met but them both coming from completely different lives. I couldnt imagine them being friends for long. Later they started school and they meet up again. This time they meet a guy named Trav(is) Kirby. He was completely different than both of Buck and Kate.
Now they were all tight. I still couldnt believe that they all could be friends. Buck comes from a divorced family and lives with his dad in a tiny trailer house. Kate, who lives in a nice medium size house with her mom and her great aunt, Polly. Polly was the third oldest woman in Solcum Township. Kates mom is one who is never home and she has boyfriends galore! And Trav was part of one of the richest families in Solcum Township.
Anyways, they have many fun events in their lives and then Trav is one of those over achievers. Soon the thing that was hard for me was when Trav committed suicide. I had no clue that he would be the one. He had a great life a head of him. This was very hard for Buck and Kate. I have gone through something like that when I was in fourth grade. It is very difficult but Buck and Kate took the event very well until the end, they really didnt know what to feel.

Reader reviewed by Mariah H.

Remembering the Good Times

We read the book Remembering the Good Times by Richard Peck in our langue arts class this year. I dislike this book but also I liked it at the same time. I liked the book because it was very inspiring. This book inspired me to be happy with the life I have and that you should take things to serious because not all the time its going to work out. I liked it because it took three different personalities of people and put them together as friends. I liked that because it shows that you can be friends with anybody and you dont have to just be friends with the people who have the same amount of money as you or like the same things as you.
But mostly I disliked this book because I didnt like how the story went along. I didnt like how Kate got put into her family. How she had all the responsibilities around the house and had to take care of her great-grandma and her mom and herself all at the same time. Her mom was never home and when she was she was to busy with herself to talk to Kate or help around the house. I also didnt like how in the story Skeeter, the troublemaker was always getting into trouble and nobody tried to stop him. If there was a Skeeter in my classes I would be so mad because I dont like when people act like that. But the part that I mostly didnt like in the story was when Scotty died in the murder and then Travis committed suicide. I dont think that Travis should have died. He had such a good life ahead of him but he just couldnt handle all the pressure that he was putting on himself. All in all I think it was a very good book to read.

Reader reviewed by Jenna P

The book Remembering the Good Times was not what I was expecting it to be. I thought that the author was going to have Trav die in the beginning of the book and tell how Buck and Kate dealt with it. It was quite the opposite, the author, Richard Peck, wrote about all of the events and clues leading up to Travs suicide. Also, Buck and Kate seemed to deal with it all very well, Travs death I mean. I knew that Buck would not show much emotion because he is a guy and guys never like to show emotion, at least not in public. Kate was a total surprise, normally girls more emotion than guys but in this case Kate showed as much, or less emotion as Buck. She just closed herself up in a little shell and held it all in I also thought that Richard Peck should have included Rusty in the story more because she fit in pretty well in the group at least that is what I thought. Plus, if the author had done that then Buck would not have been so and left out when Kate and Trav were together. I also think that Richard Peck could have come up with a more creative way for Trav to commit suicide, call me cynical but everyone knows how to hang themselves. If Trav was such a genius why didnt he come up with a totally unique way of killing himself? Over all, I thought that Remembering the Good Times was a pretty decent book, but I wouldnt recommend it to a friend.

Reader reviewed by Alyssa K.

The book Remembering the Good Times is a book talking about teenage suicide and other sad tragedies teenagers go through. I think this book was ok, but I dont think I would recommend it to kids 5th grade or younger. One reason is because they are not yet teenager. Little kids dont need to know about suicide. Some kids go through it with their families though. This story is about three teenagers named Buck, Kate, and Trav. At a point in the story they all meet and eventually meet Skeeter. At school one day Skeeter molests Ms. Slater. Kate, at the dance they had at school she called Mr. Slater and he came and beat up Skeeter. He never went to that school again. Before any of that happened, Buck joined the football team. So one day Kate and Trav came and found him playing. Kate yelled and screamed at him, telling him that he didnt even like football anyway. Buck finally said that he would quit. While he was on the team he met a cheerleader named Rusty. She was from California. Later in the story Trav goes through major tragedies and happens to commit suicide. Everybody then becomes sad and miserable, wanting to become Travs best friend. Kate and Buck both were thinking how it would be like without Trav there to play cards with them and Polly. When they have the funeral for Trav at school, a lot of parents and students attend for a little gathering. When that was over Kate and Buck went over to Pollys. They all talked about how much they are going to miss Trav. Then suddenly remember all the good times. All of a sudden they start talking about Polly Prior. Kate says, She may be the third oldest in Slocom Township, but when it comes to meanness shes number one.
Overall I like this book. One thing I didnt like about the book is that it is a sad book, and Im not a big fan of sad books. That is what I thought of the book.

Reader reviewed by Gage M

My review of this book is that it was okay. I started reading this book expecting it to be heavily laden with sorry and anguish. Instead, it was happy, about the good times as the title implies. It was a very boring read for me because I am used to fast paced reading; but this was a slow read. This book seemed to crawl along, get to an interesting part, and then die out.

I do not believe that the book could have been any better for me because I enjoy books with action. This book lacks action, which made it an almost torturous read for me.

The main fault to me is the books length. It seems that it could have been either shorter or longer. The author metaphorically dragged the book through the mud to add pages. While at the same time it could have been longer, adding chapters after Springtime; which abruptly ended.

The saddest part of this story is when Travis took his life and left behind friends who did not know how to deal with it. I can remotely understand why he would do this. He knows about conflicts in the world that the people around him are oblivious too, and that annoys him to no end. He also felt pressured by his parents, yet babied at school. But still, nothing is impossible, and I believe that he should have hung on to his life, for he had a lot to live for, and lots to give to the world.

All in all this was a good book, but it just was not meant for me. I am sure that there are people out there who absolutely love this book, but sadly, I do not.

All these are my reasons for giving this a rating of 3. It has good concept and is realistic; but it was not my kind of book.

Reader reviewed by Kylie R


I thought that the book Remembering the Good Times was good. It has a confusing storyline. I thought that it was confusing because it first talks about how Kate and Buck met but then it goes on a year later and talks about how school is going for them. Then it goes on and talks about how Kate and Buck met Trav and how Trav and Buck met Polly. They dont say much about Kates mom and they dont say anything that happened to Kates dad. I really would like to know what happened to Kates dad.
I really liked all the activities that we did in class. My favorite was Lit Circles. I liked Lit Circles because it really helped me understand what happened in that chapter. I did not really like all of the questions that we had to do. I thought that they were more of a trouble because when you are reading the chapter you dont even try to understand what is happening because we are just looking for the answers.
My favorite part in the book was when Buck came back from his moms all summer and he went to go find Kate. I liked it because it tells how much each of them have changed and how they are becoming more and more different. It is very descriptive. I also like it when Buck went out for football and only lasted for 3 days. I thought that that was kind of funny. I thought that Rusty Hazenfield was very interesting. She sounds like she has very different style and has a mind all her own. All in all this is a very good yet different book. I think you will enjoy it!!

Reader reviewed by Taylor K


Remembering the Good times is a very emotional and moving novel. I love how author Richard Wayne Peck makes it so that the character Buck is telling the story instead of having the author telling us the story himself.
The reason I like how he wrote this story is because it gives the book more excitement in my opinion because most books have the author telling the story instead of a character in the story telling us the story. Now I will tell you a little bit about how the characters meet. Buck Mendenhall is walking through a field one day just to waste some time and then off in the distance he saw something in the woods. So he goes to check it out. When he got to the woods he could hear some noises coming from the woods and he waited until he could see what it was. It was a 13 year old girl named Kate Lucas and at first when he saw her he was surprised. I mean you would be surprised to if you saw a girl your age coming out of the woods. Well anyway he asked her what she was doing in the woods and she explained to him what she was doing and where she was going and stuff like that. And after they finished introducing themselves she asked if he wanted to see a colt being born and since he had nothing better to do he went. So they watched a colt being born.

Reader reviewed by Joe

Remembering the Good Times was not a bad book. I liked it a little bit. I would rate it a three out of five. I just dont like books with people dieing in them. But it wasnt the worst book I ever read. It really skipped along. One minute it would be talking about summer then it was already the school year.
The reason I would rate this book a three out of five is because it skipped too much, to fast. It was a little confusing to me. I like reading at a nice slow pace. I cant read very fast or I have to reread it. I had to reread in this book a little bit. Otherwise I would not have understood what was going on in the book. That is one of the reasons I did not like this book.
In the books I read people do not die. Therefore I did not like the book Remembering the good times. And I did not enjoy how the character died in Remembering the Good Times. I do not like it when people die in real life. I do not like funerals either.
But I did like some of the book. Like how you do not know what is happening next in the book. I also liked the suspense. And how the author gives you hints. But you really actually do not expect it. Like when Travis goes to jail he never even knew it was going to happen. Overall it was not a really bad book.

Reader reviewed by Jessica S.

Remembering the Good Times

I liked this book because it gave a lot of different types of morals and told about real-life situations that can be painful. It reminded me about the relationships with some of my own friends, and how much I really love them. The way the book talks about grandparents and step-parents definitely relates to my own life.

My friends and I are very different. No matter that our grades, interests, or where we live are sometimes totally opposites. We have a great time together no matter where we are, just as long as were there. Kate is the Slocum norm female, Trav is the super-genius sub, and Buck is the drifting somewhere unknown foreigner. Theyre not judgmental and they stick together.

Although my grandma isnt as old as Polly, she can get mean. But she always means it to teach, never just because she feels like being grouchy. My grandma always seems to know something no one else knows. Shell give you a sly smile and surprise you later. You can come to Grandma with anything and shell find a way to fix it and make everything alright, like when Polly found the group costumes for Halloween or when she gave a meaningful speech for Trav at the end of the book.

My parents divorced when I was really young, so I didnt mind that they werent together because I couldnt remember a time when they were. I do recall, though, not enjoying the changes in parents. I gained two new parents and a couple of new siblings too early. I have two homes now, and it can get very frustrating. Theres always changes somewhere else, or Im not use to that place and they have a separate life that Im not a part of because one family lives states away. Its like Bucks situation, because he felt like he was intruding on Mr. and Mrs. Wunderlichs new marriage.