Friday's Forgotten Books, Friday, December 6, 2013

Steve Nase with my parents, his grandparents, circa 1992

Robert Barnard day on December 20th.
Would someone like to helm this on January 3?  

From the vault.

THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW, Margaret Sidney

The Five Little Peppers book series was created by Margaret Sidney between 1881 and 1916. The series began with the Peppers, a fatherless family, finding themselves in difficult straits. Mamsie presides over her three sons and two daughters.

My copy of the first volume has a few lovely colored pictures and many in black and white. It is number Book#28 in the Patti Nase Library. That information is crossed out and the name Jeff Nase written over it. Something evil has been at work here.

The style is very much like that in LITTLE WOMEN and is clearly greatly influenced by Alcott. The poverty, the triumph over adversity, the camaraderie is similar, the cozy setting is the same. Yet this series continues past the first volume, highlighting different circumstances and family members over time. The writing is lovely. I was amazed at how sophisticated the language was since it is billed for 8-12 year olds. There is something comforting in how none of their problems came from lack of love, drugs, prejudice, or any modern distraction. I could read one right now. I didn't save many of my childhood books, (many passed down to me from cousins and friends were a bit worn to begin with and I was not a careful child), but I saved four Little Pepper books. All of them claimed by my brother, who I am sure never read a book without a cowboy on the cover.

In order of publication, the Five Little Peppers books are as follows (publication dates follow in parentheses):
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (1881)
Five Little Peppers Midway (1890)
Five Little Peppers Grown Up (1892)
Five Little Peppers: Phronsie Pepper (1897)
Five Little Peppers: The Stories Polly Pepper Told (1899)
Five Little Peppers: The Adventures of Joel Pepper (1900)
Five Little Peppers Abroad (1902)
Five Little Peppers At School (1903)
Five Little Peppers and Their Friends (1904)
Five Little Peppers in the Brown House (1907)
Five Little Peppers: Our Davie Pepper (1916)

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