The Gammage Cup

"The Gammage Cup" is a children's book by Carol Kendall about the "Minnipins" from the village of Slipper on the Water. It is a Newbery Honor book and an ALA Notable Children's Book. It was first published in 1959.

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Minipins of Slipper-on-the-Water is one of twelve villages of the Minnipins in the Land Between the Mountains. In the beginning of the story, Slipper-on-the-Water is described as "special", because it is home to the Periods, descendants of Fooley the Balloonist. These people's names are actually common abbreviations used in our world, such as Ltd., Etc., Co. and Geo.. They hold all the high offices in Slipper-on-the-Water, and have a "Council of Periods" which rules the village. Muggles is a somewhat simple-minded candymaker who also runs the Fooley Museum, which contains the selection of objects brought back from the Land Beyond the Mountains by Fooley. One night, she wakes up and sees what she at first thinks is the sunrise, but is actually fires on the Sunset Mountains. Gummy, a carefree poet, owns a house up the Little Trickle, which feeds into the Watercress River on which all the villages of the Land Between the Mountains are located. Gummy, along with Walter the Earl and Curley Green, form "Oh, them," three Minnipins who shun the tradition-based existence of the Minnipins and do things such as wear different-colored cloaks and have different color doors.

Characters

* Fooley
* Mushrooms
* Periods
* Muggles
* Gummy
* Walter the Earl
* Mingy (The Money Keeper)
* Curley Green
* Minnipins

Bold is important characters

References

* www.google.caThe Gammage Cup is a highly recommended read for the 6 to 12 group. This review is from: The Gammage Cup (Hardcover)Carol Kendall once said, "Children are a marvelous audience . . . they remember what they have read! Sometimes they remember it all their lives!" Adults who read The Gammage Cup as children will probably agree. The book is memorable because it's about self-discovery as well as external adventure and because the five outcasts from the conformist society of Slipper-on-the-Water are all appealing in different ways: Walter the Earl (the scholar), Curley Green (the artist), Gummy (the poet), Mingy (the curmudgeon), and Muggles, the average Minnipin who finds the rebel within. When they turn out to be the only defenders of the Land between the Mountains from an impending invasion of cannibalistic Mushrooms, they prove themselves to be spiritual descendants of Fooley the Magnificent, the Minnipin who hundreds of years earlier ventured in a balloon out of the valley into the Land Beyond the Mountains. Among the souvenirs Fooley brought back with him from the outside world -- our world -- was an odd list of abbreviations, including Ltd., Co., Bros., Geo., that his literal descendants, who call themselves the Periods, took as their own names, making up pronunciations for these exotic words -- Litted, Coe, Bross, Gee-oh. The conceit will please young readers who themselves may be at the age where such abbreviations in the grown-up world puzzle and amuse them. It is also revealing to discover that Fooley was himself originally an outcast like the five adventurers, mythologized into an acceptable kind of hero by his dull descendants. The world that Kendall creates in this book is a kind of pre-industrial village society -- beautifully depicted in Erik Blegvad's drawings, which include a map of the valley and a bird's-eye view of Slipper-on-the-Water with houses and other buildings labeled. If there is such a thing as a cozy adventure, this is it. After all, the five outcasts don't even venture far from home, only into the mountains that surround their isolated valley, though even that is unknown territory to most Minnipins and fraught with real danger. The story is sure to appeal to imaginative children in the target age range of 9-12 not only because of its sympathetic characters but because its unobtrusive lesson about individuality is just what preteens are beginning to struggle with in their own lives. And it's so well written that adults will enjoy it, too.