Aladdin classics series - beautiful series for children

books:


	• Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (Aladdin Classics) Margaret Sidney Aladdin, 2006 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Aladdin classics series - beautiful series for children

I LOVE this series! They're inexpensive and beautifully made books - the black edges look classy and the covers are so well designed. There are many more than actually came up when I searched for "Aladdin Classics", and they're well worth finding!

"My whockety! What a lot!"

SPOILERS INCLUDED

This book by Margaret Sidney (the pseudonym of Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop), was first published in 1881, and has remained in print ever since. A quaint, classic children's tale, THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW was the first of a series of Little Peppers books published from 1881-1916. Thus, the Little Peppers books span the Late Victorian, Edwardian, and George V eras. This was a period of dynamic social change, from the time of candles and gaslight to the First World War, and the books reflect this overall.

Many have noticed the stylistic similarities between Louisa May Alcott's books and Margaret Sidney's. This is not accidental. They were approximate contemporaries, they were both New Englanders, and Ms. Sidney, a literary historian, eventually purchased Ms. Alcott's home (which had been earlier owned by Nathaniel Hawthorne) and lived there for many years.

Unlike Alcott, who could be sonorously self-righteous in her writings, Ms. Sidney's books sparkle with energy. They are stories reflecting a powerful, proper New England Protestant Work Ethic, a sense of Grace, Works and Reward, but the Five Little Peppers have a great deal of good-natured fun at the same time.

At the opening of THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW the Pepper household is wretchedly poor in material wealth and comforts, but is rich to the point of overflowing with love of family, which makes their grinding poverty easier to bear.

The widowed Mrs. Pepper is a seamstress who takes in piecework for pennies. The two older children, Ben (Ebenezer) and Polly (Mary) are twelve and eleven respectively. They've both grown up very quickly. Ben works at manual labor for the Parson of Badgertown. He occasionally brings his two younger brothers, Joey (Joel) and Davie (David) Pepper along to work at easy fix-it jobs. Polly is the household's surrogate mother, cooking, baking, and caring for the family while Mrs. Pepper is away working. Polly's steps are delightfully haunted by Baby Phronsie (Sophronia), the three year old youngest Pepper. It is Mrs. Pepper's fondest wish that her children are schooled, but they must all contribute to keep the wolf from the door. The family often suffers setbacks, such as an outbreak of measles amongst them all, but they all believe in the ultimately beneficient future.

This future begins in a dark way, when Phronsie is kidnapped by an organ grinder. She is ultimately rescued by Jasper King, the son of a wealthy businessman. Jasper, a lonely boy, soon befriends Ben and Polly, and introduces the Peppers to his own family. Impressed with the fine qualities of the Pepper brood, the Kings ask Mrs. Pepper and the children to come and live at their house in the city, where Mrs. Pepper begins work as a domestic and the children begin school. As the book closes, the King family and the Pepper family discover that they are related to each other.

The following books in the series expand on this foundation. THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW espouses values which some would define as particularly Christian, but as values---responsibility, kindness, affection, respect, courtesy, love, family, community, hard work, faith, hope, and charity---they are truly universal.

Ms. Sidney does not batter her readers' sensibilities with sermonizing. Rather, the Peppers themselves embody these values. Although the Pepper children are almost impossibly good to the point of self-effacement, they are children we all wish we knew.

Sorrowfully, THE FIVE LITTLE PEPPERS AND HOW THEY GREW may be inspiring, but it is fiction. Even in the year of its publication, poverty would have led the Pepper children more than likely into alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence, unwed pregnancy, and other such difficulties. The book may not, therefore, be very realistic, but it is uplifting. In keeping with the New England Transcendentalist outlook it was born of, a sincere belief wedded to hard work can raise us all up from the lowest depths. These are lessons we should all inculcate ourselves with.

This is a good, old-fashioned, gently-paced children's novel that will enchant any susceptible adult.

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Old Fashioned, but Charming

"The Five Little Peppers" are Ben, Polly, Joel, Davie, and Phronsie. Their father died when Phronsie was a baby and Mrs. Pepper struggles to earn enough money to support the family. Despite their poverty, they are a loving family, full of spirit and adventure. Ben and Polly do what they can to support the family, but a bout with measles threatens the well being of the entire Pepper clan, especially Joel and Polly. The family has other adventures and befriend Jasper King during one of them. This friendship will enrich their lives in ways they never thought would be possible.

It's always interesting as an adult to reread a book that I loved as a child. When I was young I thought how much fun the Peppers had and longed to belong to a large family. As an adult, I realize how poor the family really was and how quickly the children had to grow up. As a child I thought how terrible it was that Polly couldn't read for days on end because of the measles; as an adult I realize the Peppers couldn't even afford to buy books.

First published in 1881, "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew" is old-fashioned (the doctor even makes house calls!), but still enjoyable. The Peppers are all delightful children, with Joel being the most honest of the bunch as he complains about having to eat the same food every day. Margaret Sidney was a talented author, who could make even inanimate objects, such as the stove, seem alive. The children's adventures may seem simple to today's young readers, who are used to Harry Potter and the like, but it's a refreshing change.

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Charming, but too fast-paced

You know, the Five Little Peppers are always good for a re-read, but recently I read them very soon after rereading "Little Women." The two books are similar in their construction and setting: both about large families with a missing father (the Peppers' has died), trying to make ends meet, behave well, and generally grow up as they go along. But whereas "Little Women" is sort of quiet and preachy, the Peppers are always bucketing along, shrilly screaming, yelling, falling, fighting. Almost every sentence is an exclamation, or a booming pronouncement, and every little thing that occurs is a dramatic situation. I was quite exhausted after realizing this (of course it occurred to me early on, so the rest of the book I was feeling wearied by it all).

After reading many childrens' books where the scenarios are not so rushed and dramatic, I find the Peppers series to suffer, but only on this account. It does provide a charming story of a slower-paced era. However, I'd recommend "Swallows and Amazons," or any of E. Nesbit's books, before this one, just because Ransome and Nesbit treat their books like novels for a younger audience, whereas Sidney treats hers as a kids' book, where everything has to attract attention.

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Five Little Peppers and How They Grew was originally serialized in an 1880 edition of Wide Awake, a children's magazine. The publisher of the magazine, Daniel Lothrop, loved the Pepper stories so much that he published a hard-cover edition of the story -- and married the author in 1881. In 1883 the couple moved to historic Concord, Massachusetts, and resided in a house called the Wayside, which had previously been home to Nathaniel Hawthorne and also to Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women.