Remembering the Good Times

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 Morgan J


I really enjoyed reading the book, Remembering the Good Times. The story really taught me things about friendship. One of them is never, letting school work get you too much. I mean yes it is very important to do but if you get one bad grade there is always time to do your best again. Trav one of the characters in this heartfelt story had a very huge problem with everything always having to be perfect. Travs parents are very perfect people. Kate and Buck get really worried about him always letting himself down for things that he didnt have to stress about.

This story taught me that to be a good friend you have to stay by their side trough thick and thin. Like Kate and Buck did with Trav. Whatever Trav did his friends were there for him. I just wish that Trav wouldnt have been such a perfectionist about everything. I didnt even seem like he wanted to just be a teenager and have fun.

When Trav took his life it reminded me of my friends dad. You see my friends dad had depression and doubt like Trav did. So thats how I connected with the story. When Trav and kate found out about Trav I really could imagine their feelings and questions. My friends dad took his life this past summer and having your best friend call you and tell you something like that just breaks your heart. In this case I never even knew her dad so it was even harder to say good bye to a man I never seen.

This book taught me to always except you for who you are. Know and that to always treat people with a lot of respect because people always need someone to brighten up their day. So always say compliments to others so that they know that you at least like them in some kind of way. To you it may be weird but for someone else it can make the biggest difference. Always try to make someone else happy.

By: Morgan Johnson
Period 6

Reader reviewed by Katie R.

Bravo! 3.5 star story. This story was a story that made you want to read on to see what would happen next. The friends were a very unlikely trio. I think that this shows that even if you are best friends with someone, you might not exactly know what is going on in that persons mind. The characters in the story are so different thats it strange that they are even friends. Some things in the story that kind of confused me was when Skeeter was beaten up by the teachers caring husband. I liked the part in the story when you had to wait and see what was going to happen. It made me want to read the next chapter! Some parts in the story were very, very, random! Yet, other parts were sad. For example, the two deaths were very sad. I cannot believe that the Scotty died! And then later, when Travis got back from his trip to Iowa, I was kind of suspicious about how he was giving his old, and very close items away! I thought that something strange would be coming up. If I were Kate and Buck, when they had to go to Kates house during school, I thought maybe it was Polly who had died, but I was wrong! It was about Travis. I also felt bad for Traviss parents, who were mostly blamed for Travis feeling the way he did, which was not entirely the parents fault. I think this story is an overall okay story, and I recommend it to people who do not have a problem with suicide, and people that think they would like the story from reading this review, even though I do not exactly like this story. ENCORE! :]

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 Morgan H

I disliked this book because their wasnt a lot going on in to book. The book wasnt very exciting or adventurous. So I will tell you a brief summary of what happened in the book.
Trav moves to town and Kate, Buck, Trav, and Polly are best friends. They are always playing card games together. They sit out on Pollys porch and look out at the orchard. They would even go in it sometimes. Buck went away for the summer to his mothers. When he came back Kate was very beautiful. They all started freshman year and it was very crazy. Buck was so upset about Trav and Kate liking each other that he went out for freshman football. Trav and Kate told him they missed him so he quit. Kate tried out for the play and was very scared because she didnt think she was going to make it because their was only three spots open. But surprisingly she made it. Skeeter was being very rude to Mrs. Slater. So Kate had gone and talked to Mr. Slater and told him what was going on. Then he made a plan with Kate to beat up Skeeter and he did that during homecoming day. Trav had gotten caught stealing things from a store and was taken to jail and the first people he called was Buck and his father. Then for his punishment he was sent to go and work on a farm all summer. When he had gotten back he had gifts for everyone. Polly had gotten a bottle of perfume. Buck had gotten a calculator he had seen Trav have before. Kate had gotten a stuffed animal she had seen in his room before. Then Trav hangs himself in the orchard. And the gifts were a sign to all his friends he was going to do that.

Reader reviewed by Amanda B.

Personally I did not like this book. The topic it is on bothers me, seeing as I do not like discussing or reading about suicide. I really hated this book and though it was stupid on many levels. The only part I remotely liked was the poem Trav writes for Kate. Though everything else to me was pointless, and I saw no point in reading this book. It was awfully annoying and I hated it very very much! Here is the one, I repeat ONE part I liked:
The days of winter enter in,
The darkness nibbles at the days,
The heavy clouds pull down the sky,
The first deep snowfall stays, and grays.

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

Besides that I thought that it was very stupid and annoying. I did not like it because it talked about suicide and I thought it was pointless. I also thought it was stupid how Trav and Buck sort of had a secret fight over Kate. A basic summary of this story is that Buck and Kate meet in the orchard. Then after they started school they met Trav. Then a few years later Trav kills himself. The only interesting part of him commit suicide was he did it in his and Kates clearing in the orchard. I thought this book would have been better but it really is not. I would NOT recommend Remembering the Good Times to anybody I know. All-in-all I hated this stupid pointless book.

Reader reviewed by Ashlynne K

I enjoyed Remembering The Good Times because I love stories that have strong friendships and drama. In this story Buck and Kate and Travis had great connection. Theyve showed me that a healthy friendship lasts along time. Some examples of their closeness is when Travis was stuck in Jail he wasted his one phone call to contact his best friend, Buck. Then Buck came immediately, no questions asked. Another time would be when Kate tried out for the play, she needed Buck there with her. Finally when she did get the part, Buck, Travis, and Polly helped her prepare even when they already knew she was ready.
I personally think that Kate and Buck should have dated in the story. Even though Kate seemed to be attached to Travis like they were meant to be together. Buck has always had certain feelings for Kate since the second time they talked. When Buck learned that Kate and Travis had a close relationship over the summer while he was away in Cleveland with his mom and step-dad, he became a little jealous.
Some of the things I learned from reading this book is sometimes you dont know your friends as well as you thought. Kate and Buck knew that something was wrong with Travis because of the way he acted and sometimes thought of things in a weird way. Another thing I picked up from this book was try at what you want in life and appreciate life. As an example for the part of never giving up would be when Kate wanted to be in the play so badly that she tried her best and never gave up. My other thing I said I learned was appreciating what you have and dont it waste it or take it for granted that way Travis did

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 alan h

I disliked the book remembering the good times because I couldnt get into the book. It would have been better if the friends would have more arguments and a fight about who has a better grade or who has a better life like Trav did. The beginning of the story wasnt very interesting either. It could have started out at a school or a gas station. A good example would be that buck was walking threw school not paying attention to what he was doing and knocked all her books down and then went to pick them up and she asked to be friends or he could have saw her walk by a gas station and ask if she wanted a coke. I think that would be a good intro.

The only thing I liked about the book was the two deaths of Scotty and Trav. Trav suicide because he didnt think everything in the world he did for his parents was perfect so he hung himself and Scotty was killed in a robbery at the Sunoco gas station. And another thing I liked about the book was the costumes Trav, Kate, and Buck wore to the dance. Trav wore a solider costume. Kate wore a faded pink dress and buck wore a raccoon jacket that was really old because it was missing patches of fur. The last thing I liked about the book is when buck fights Skeeter just to get his dads work hat back and he does.

Reader reviewed by beth s

I did not like this book because in my opinion it does not appeal to my age group. We like more interesting books like: mystery, humorous, and some of us like nonfiction. R.T.G.T seems more like an old people book, or for smarty-pants and nerd (people who like to work.) There were a few good parts in this book, I would tell you but it would ruin the book. The book takes too long to read, and plus who really likes reading anyway. Some people do, like me, but I did not like this. So if I like reading and I did not enjoy this book why would someone who does not like reading enjoy this book? To me it does not have any character, chorizema, interesting topics, or good description. So I took some time to ask some people from a variety of ages and here is what some said, I liked this book, it shows that you should always look back and remember the good times Said an anonymous individual. On the other hand another individual said, I absolutely hated this book, it fits old people, it is not for modern day kids/ teens, we like fun books, more up to date books. In my judgment I agree with the second individual, I too think it for older people, it just does not fit any of the things I would look for in a book. If you are looking for a good book, I would not recommend this one, unless you like boring books.