Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

Illustrated Junior Library Series 1
by Margaret Sidney, William Sharp (Illustrator)
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
©1936, Item: 38631
Hardcover, 384 pages
Not in stock

Did you ever know a family that every one envied because they had such good times together? This is the famous story of such a family and the happiness it shared even though there was very little money and a great many problems.

Mrs. Pepper—Mamsie—and her five children lived in a plain little brown house where she struggled to feed and clothe her lively brood. The family had little in the way of luxury and hardly any of the things that many of us today take for granted. Even when it came to baking a birthday cake, they had to think twice before they scraped up enough money to put in raisins!

But they had such fun and good times together and loved one another so dearly that when a very rich little boy discovered the warmth and happiness that flooded the little brown house he felt himself lucky to be let in. And as it turned out, his coming brought luck to the Five Little Peppers too.

This heart-warming story has been made even more appealing by the beautiful color and black-and-white illustrations which have been prepared exclusively for the Illustrated Junior Library.

from the dust jacket of the popular edition

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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.