Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
Margaret Sidney
Finished 05/10/08
The perfect post-thesis read. Really, I’m surprised I had never come across this little gem previously. It’s totally dated in a wonderfully Victorian sort of way, but really, to the extent that every young girl gets exposed to Little Women as a child, I really find Five Little Peppers and How They Grew to be equally satisfying in many of the same ways.
As a child, my dad was really big on reading me some of the classic older children’s stories. Narnia, obviously, as well as wizard of oz, but also things like Cubby in Wonderland and some story about a mule that I can’t for the life of me remember the title of, but it was certainly not on the “standard” list of old books one reads to children.
And in elementary school we had a lovely teacher who is still close in my memory for story times involving Gentle Ben,Queenie Peavy, and Caddy Woodlawn Somehow though, the first I came across the Peppers was on a random shelf at the Strand.
The children want nothing more other than to please their mother. They begin in a state of almost complete poverty, without the ability to even form real wishes for what they’d want, if only their “ship” would come in. But because of their good and virtuous nature, they are taken in by a rather well off family, and a certain remarkably contrived plot twist in the last two pages solidifies their good fortune.
Like other books with such a morally structured story, it’s only worth picking up the title if you can suspend your disbelief and follow along with these outlandishly virtuous children. However, become invested and their world opens up beautifully. Oh no! Polly’s got the measles! Oh no! Phronsie went to mail a letter and got lost!
After a semester though, of beating my own head against a keyboard, repeating over and over again “how do I kill off dad”, this wonderfully fluffy little text was just exactly what I needed.
