Product Description

Johnnie was only the runt of the litter, a little peppermint pig. He'd cost Mother a shilling, but somehow his great naughtiness and cleverness kept Poll and Theo cheerful, even though it was one of the most difficult years of their lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152458 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
Nina Bawden is a prolific writer of novels for both adults and children, but it is her children's works such as Carrie's War and Granny the Pag for which she is best known. She deals unflinchingly with the harsh realities of life: her young heroes and heroines face growing up in difficult circumstances, and the main characters of this novel, Poll and Theo, find their paths to emotional maturity are not always easy. The novel is set in the early years of the 20th century, and opens with an account of the indomitable Granny Greengrass losing a finger to the butcher's cleaver in a moment of indecision. This unexpectedly grim first paragraph is representative of the unsentimental nature of the entire novel. The children, Lily, George, Theo and Poll, move from the city with their mother to live with their aunts in Norfolk, while their father seeks his fortune in America. This is no pastoral idyll, but a world where children die of scarlet fever; blackmail and vicious bullying are common occurences; and poverty is a fact of life. Into this world comes Johnnie, a 'peppermint' pig, the runt of the litter, who becomes the focal point for the children's happiness and sorrows. He is their confidant and friend, and, depsite his often outrageous behaviour, truly one of the family. But again the real world intrudes - Poll returns home from school one day to find Johnnie has gone. Bawden does not beat about the bush - Johnnie has been slaughtered and Poll, particularly, finds this almost impossible to accept. It is a measure of Bawden's sensitivity that, while sympathizing with Poll, we see that Johnnie's death was necessary and that Poll's eventual acceptance of it is a vital part of her growing up. (Kirkus UK)

Poll and Theo's mother is at bottom a practical sort, but one who loves a bit of excitement and a good story - the children's favorite is the one about Granny Greengrass getting her finger cut off at the butcher's. And when the Greengrass family falls on hard times - Dad takes the blame for a robbery at work and leaves his job as a carriage painter to seek his fortune in America - both Poll and Theo accept the change in the spirit of romantic adventure. Theo, the runt of the family and a perpetual outsider, uses his powers of invention to play into the blackmailing schemes of "gooseberryeyed" Noah Bugg, leading the older boy on with a tale about his father's having stolen and hidden a large cache of gold. Poll, more outgoing, shares her mother's fancy for the peppermint pig (another runt) who becomes an indoor family pet, only to be traumatized when the pig, Johnny, is sent to the butcher, a fate her mother hasn't had the heart to warn her about. The Greengrass family is set apart by more than its pet pig - there's Grandfather who chose life as a hobo and appears from time to time demanding dinner and clothing. Yet these differences are less important than Poll's final ability to turn the tragedy of Johnny into another precious smoked glass memory and face her anxiety over the family's high hopes for the future - an attitude she damns as "all this looking forward." But this is essentially a looking backward story - less structured than Carrie's War but crammed with sharp, truthful moments and the collective family legends that are almost, but not quite, the same thing. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
Nina Bawden is one of today's best writers for both adults and children. She has often used her own childhood experiences in her books - Carrie's War is set in the mining valley in Wales where she lived as an evacuee in wartime. She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Somerville College, Oxford and finished her first novel the year after she took her degree. She won the Guardian Award for Children's Fiction for The Peppermint Pig.