Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

  Cute Variation on (fill in the Blank)

Sincerelyornot, 8/4/2011

Five Little Peppers is a book best described by similar books. Its referenced in Cheaper by the Dozen, written nearly in parallel to Eight Cousins, and so similar to Little Women it deserves its own chicken/egg joke.

The early 1900s were full of books like this, modern fiction at the time and all in the same, gosh-the-world-is-rosy style. Its a treasure trove of classics to read aloud, especially for people in the family friendly/ home school/ conservative worldview.

Of all the great characters, the mom is my favorite. A realistic-ish Proverbs 31 woman who can sew, bake, and is patient with her children most of the time. She manages to be a good example, without coming off as a perfectly annoying saint, no mean feat in this type of literature.


There are actually 12 books in the Pepper clan series, but the author ran out of ideas around book five if you ask me. This is the original and best, with plenty of cute anecdotal moments and great character development for each of the Pepper siblings.