Remembering the Good Times

Reader reviewed by frankie

In Remembering the Good Times, you start at Bucks dads house because his parents are divorced and he lives with his mom on week days and with his father on week ends. When he goes to stay with his dad trailer, he meets a girl in an orchard and her name is Kate. She is a tom girl, one of the main characters, Buck and Kate and the main characters name is Buck and later in the book they become really good friends Kate lives with her mom and her grandma in a old farm house buck dad lives in a trailer in the back of a gas station called the sonoco and then he moves in with his dad for good and his mom marries a man named Mr. Wonderlick and they move to Atlanta and the summer after a kid named Trav moves to Bucks town he goes to live with his mom and step dad in Atlanta and then he comes back when it is time to go to school. Buck finds out that Trav and Kate have been hanging out together a lot while he was gone.

Reader reviewed by eli p

In Remembering the Good Times, by Richard Peck, it seemed to have a lot of ups and downs in my opinion upon reading the book. By ups and downs I mean that theyre were a lot of good and bad times. Also in Remembering the Good Times, there seemed to be four different good life features presented, making friends, keeping friends, helping friends and also unfortunately, losing friends. An example of making friends was when Buck and Kate first me each other in the beginning of the book. A really touching part of the story for me is when we figure out that Kate, Buck, and Trav are all considered outcasts by society and they all know it but they also know that they dont need anything but friendship to get by in life. That is pretty much the main theme of the book that really intrigued me and made me keep on reading it.

A few more points in the story have to do with helping your friends and that is easily recognized in this book by seeing how Buck helps Kate and Kate helps Trav and all the way around to everybody helping everybody. This just goes to show that they wont be knocked around by the average stereotypes of society. One last point I would like to show you in the story is dealing with losing friends. I wont spoil it for you but let me tell you what all this means. It is that this story touches on a very very touchy subject, suicide, and let me tell you from experience, it is not easy dealing with a suicide in real life and in this story it shows that suicide does hurt the people that are left behind and that it is a good reason to like this book. It puts real life experiences into a fictional story.

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 Lisa

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 Zac B.

Remembering the Good Times
BY: Zac Bublitz

Personally, I didnt care for Remembering the Good Times, because I kept on getting lost. The story was okay in some parts, but most parts werent the greatest. I thought it was confusing how he made Trav come into the sceen when Skeeter was being disruptive and he had Trav calm down Skeeter. Then just have Trav walk right out of the room! I also disliked how he had the party and he had Trav show the guests his childish bedroom.
The thing that I liked about the book is that it is similar to the book Twilight, because its about a girl named Bella who moves in with her dad. The reason why she moves in with her dad is because her mom gets remarried to a man and then move to Florida. The only difference so far that I know about is that nobody dies.
Otherwise I would never recommend this book to anyone that I know. I also think that they should not have students reading about the book. My final thought is that I dont think that Miss Osborne should have given away the part that Trav died before we started to read the book.

Reader reviewed by taylor L

Taylor Lowe
Period 6
11/18/08


I didnt like Remembering the good times because of many reasons. A few reasons why I didnt like it are, one is that it wasnt very original. Another reason why I didnt like was because why did Travis have to die? Why couldnt it be a happy story instead of a murderous killing story? One more reason for me hating the book remembering the good times is that they could have described the story a little bit better and mad it a little longer than what it originally was. But not everything in remembering the good times I hated. One example in the story is, the activities we did in the group, like one specific project we did which was showing examples of Kates family.

Some more reasons why I didnt like the book are that there was not any picture in it. The pictures do give a good description and if a person cant visualize the event happening in the story then how are the people suppose to get remembering the good times? A few more reasons why the book wasnt the worst and they are, every now and then the book would actually give enough detail about something. An example of the book was when the narrator was describing Pollys room to the people and the costumes that Travis, Kate, and buck wore on Halloween. All in all the book was sort of enjoyable you could get into the story and visualize a few things and details. If I had to recommend the book Remembering the good times I would say it would be an alright book for someone to be doing on there free time or as a graded free reading book.

Reader reviewed by nathan k

Personally I did not like Remembering the Good Times, because it did not hold my attention and it was boring. It did not hold my attention because parts of it were cheesy and some did not make sense at all. And it kept talking about how Buck wanted to go out with Kate, but he never tried to do anything to get her to go out with him. Now do not get me wrong, it was a good book just not for me.
Remembering the Good Times is about a group of three friends who meet in a town called Slocum. The three friends names were Kate, Buck Mendenhall, the narrator, and Travis Kirby. Travis or Trav for short is one of those people who strive for perfection. Buck Mendenhall lives with his dad in Slocum. He and his dad live in a trailer home in the back of the towns small gas station which is run by Irene and Scotty. Kate is a girl who Buck meets while running through Polly Priors pear orchard. When they meet Kate asks Buck if he wants to see a baby horse being born. Buck says sure and they go see it being born.
Then, when the school year starts, they meet someone else. Travis Kirby. After that they kept hanging out everyday and their friendship kept growing. Finally they started playing card games and board games like Monopoly with Polly Prior. After about two years something tragic happens that could tear their friendship apart.

Reader reviewed by taylor l

I didnt like Remembering the good times because of many reasons. A few reasons why I didnt like it are, one is that it wasnt very original. Another reason why I didnt like was because why did Travis have to die? Why couldnt it be a happy story instead of a murderous killing story? One more reason for me hating the book remembering the good times is that they could have described the story a little bit better and mad it a little longer than what it originally was. But not everything in remembering the good times I hated. One example in the story is, the activities we did in the group, like one specific project we did which was showing examples of Kates family.

Some more reasons why I didnt like the book are that there was not any picture in it. The pictures do give a good description and if a person cant visualize the event happening in the story then how are the people suppose to get remembering the good times? A few more reasons why the book wasnt the worst and they are, every now and then the book would actually give enough detail about something. An example of the book was when the narrator was describing Pollys room to the people and the costumes that Travis, Kate, and buck wore on Halloween. All in all the book was sort of enjoyable you could get into the story and visualize a few things and details. If I had to recommend the book Remembering the good times I would say it would be an alright book for someone to be doing on there free time or as a graded free reading book.

Reader reviewed by Mike

Michael Maness
I thought that remembering the good times was a very very boring book. It did go into very very good detail. It had a point about what some kids are doing these days and sometimes back when people thought they were safe from things. Some kids are committing suicide others are just dealing with the pressure. The kids that are committing suicide are being under pressure from families and friends. But the number one reason kids are committing suicide is pressure from school. An example of pressure from home from the book is that Trav has to act perfect for his parents. There isnt much that the school can do but not have hard enough class for the students that want a challenge. The book was a little dull because it just mainly didnt have a lot of action. The characters were a little dull. The main character Buck was a little dull because he didnt talk a lot it was mainly about him narrating the story. Kate was a little more talkative and cute. I liked Kate the best in the book, but she was a little plain. I could identify with Trav because he didnt mind homework and he looked at things differently.
I really didnt like the topic of the book. It was a downer. I know kids need to know about this subject but maybe learning about it a different way would be better.
M Mi
I thought that remembering the good times was a very very boring book. It did go into very very good detail. It had a point about what some kids are doing these days and sometimes back when people thought they were safe from things. Some kids are committing suicide others are just dealing with the pressure. The kids that are committing suicide are being under pressure from families and friends. But the number one reason kids are committing suicide is pressure from school. An example of pressure from home from the book is that Trav has to act perfect for his parents. There isnt much that the school can do but not have hard enough class for the students that want a challenge. The book was a little dull because it just mainly didnt have a lot of action. The characters were a little dull. The main character Buck was a little dull because he didnt talk a lot it was mainly about him narrating the story. Kate was a little more talkative and cute. I liked Kate the best in the book, but she was a little plain. I could identify with Trav because he didnt mind homework and he looked at things differently.
I really didnt like the topic of the book. It was a downer. I know kids need to know about this subject but maybe learning about it a different way would be better.