Book Review: Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
In the small rural community of Badgertown, there is a little brown house where the Pepper family lives. Mr. Pepper passed some years ago, so Mary “Mamsie” Pepper takes in sewing and mending to feed her five children. From oldest to youngest, they are Ebenezer “Ben”, Mary “Polly”, Joel “Joe”, David, and Sophronia “Phronsie”. They’re generally good kids, but that’s still a lot, and the nickles and dimes that Mamsie earns soon are back out the door, and how is she ever to get them educated?
This is the first of twelve books about the Pepper children, published in 1881. They were enormously popular back in the day, with the author being persuaded by fans (and her pocketbook) to fill in gaps in the chronology after she originally finished the series at four books with Phronsie all grown up.
Despite the grinding poverty we see them enduring in the first chapters of this book, the Pepper children are optimistic and mostly cheerful tykes. But Mrs. Pepper knows that Ben having to hire out to chop wood at eleven, and Polly helping her with the sewing and baking and minding the younger children at age ten is going to put a serious crimp on their future prospects.
Despite their straitened circumstances, the children manage to bake a cake for Mamsie’s birthday. Then the household is struck by measles, with Polly losing her sight for several weeks before recovering. (Polly’s more or less the star of this volume.)
Then Phronsie is abducted by an organ grinder (seriously?) and is rescued by a visiting boy a bit older than Ben. Jasper “Jappy” King is the son of very wealthy J. Horatio King, a man who tends to explode at the mildest inconvenience. Jasper becomes a good friend to the Pepper children, and even Mr. King himself is charmed by the adorable Phronsie.
Alas, Jasper’s vacation is soon over, but he’s inspired Ben and Polly to try to create a first Christmas celebration for their younger siblings, which goes off to be more extravagant than they’d imagined.
Polly is invited to visit the King family for a while so that she can get musical training. There she meets Jasper’s much older sister Mrs. Whitney, and that woman’s three sons, Percy, Van and Dick. While she enjoys her stay and becomes very good at the piano, Polly gets lonely, and Mr. King invites Phronsie (his personal favorite) to come and cheer Polly up.
Once that’s happened, there’s nothing to do but have the rest of the Peppers visit as well, and that brings on a revelation that the family is not as alone in the world as they thought they were, so happy endings all round!
This is heartwarming, family-friendly stuff, and decently written. Mr. King, with his failure to understand why the world keeps conspiring not to bend to his every whim (and absolutely blind to his own privilege), is the most interesting character to me. Parents will probably appreciate the important lessons this book can teach their children about helping their parents and making do when the money just isn’t there.
That said, the book is highly dependent on coincidence in the Victorian melodrama manner, and more cynical modern readers may feel a bit cheated by how Phronsie in particular just luckily stumbles into situations.
Content note: It’s not emphasized in the story itself, but organ grinders were at the time stereotypically foreigners and thus untrustworthy. This one turns out not just an ungrateful wretch, but actively criminal. Parents may want to guide young readers in dealing with outdated stereotypes.
Overall: A decent read, and all the books are in the public domain, so the first four at least should easily be found in inexpensive editions or downloadable. There were movie adaptations made in 1939 and 1940 that aren’t particularly faithful to the books but I am told were popular at the time. Suitable for about fifth-graders on up.
