Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

First published: 1951; illustrated

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Friendship, animals, family, and social issues

Time of work: From early September to the end of May in the 1920’s

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: The sleepy town of Cranbury, Connecticut

Principal Characters:

• Jerry Pye, a mild-mannered, fun-loving schoolboy of eleven, whose deepest wish is for a dog
• Rachel Pye, a spunky, imaginative, loyal schoolgirl of ten, who helps Jerry acquire and then recover a dog
• Ginger Pye, the Pyes’ lively, smart, mixed-breed fox terrier puppy
• Wally Bullwinkle, Jerry’s half-orphaned, surly classmate, who steals Ginger to train for the circus
• Sam Doody, the very tall, lanky captain of the high school basketball team, who helps the Pyes get the money to buy Ginger
• Uncle Bennie, the winsome three-year-old uncle of the Pye children, who is instrumental in both acquiring and recovering Ginger
• Chief Larrimer, the Cranbury police chief, who helps get Ginger back

The Story

Two problems unify this loosely plotted novel. At first, events revolve around the efforts of Jerry and Rachel Pye to acquire a brown and white, mostly fox terrier puppy from the litter in Mrs. Speedy’s barn. Although Mr. Pye is an eminent ornithologist, the children know that the family pocketbook is almost always nearly empty and that they will have to earn the dollars themselves—by the Saturday night before Labor Day when Mrs. Speedy will sell the puppy to someone else.

Saturday afternoon, with the Pyes’ prospects exceedingly dim, Sam Doody, a congenial basketball star, unexpectedly asks them to dust the church pews for him. They rush to get the job done, resourcefully pushing Uncle Bennie up and down the rows as a duster, and arrive with the money just before the deadline. After a family discussion, the children name the lively, smart little fellow Ginger. Ginger becomes a fixture at the Pye house on Beam’s Place, like Gracie-the-cat—cherished, indulged, and much loved.

Trouble looms, however, and the second plot problem begins. Several times the children hear mysterious footsteps following them while they are on outings with Ginger, and they spot a shadowy figure in a mustard-yellow hat lurking about. They become convinced that an Unsavory Character intends to steal Ginger. When Ginger trails Jerry to school, climbs the fire escape, and drops into the classroom, the peculiar behavior of Jerry’s sly, unfriendly classmate Wally Bullwinkle foreshadows future events for the reader.

On Thanksgiving Day, the children’s fears are realized: Jerry discovers that Ginger has disappeared. The children scour the town, enlisting the help of almost everyone, including Police Chief Larrimer, but the greatest search in Cranbury history proves unsuccessful.

Months pass, with no sign of Ginger. Wherever the children go, on outings to Big Rock with Sam Doody or to the seashore with their family, they keep their eyes and ears open for Ginger, although the reader almost loses sight of the problem because the children’s everyday adventures and their imaginative musings are in themselves so interesting. Oddly, however, whenever the children are on Second Avenue near the Bullwinkle house, they have a strong sense of Ginger’s presence.

All ends well on May 29, Jerry’s birthday. Jerry and Rachel are at the train station watching arrivals and departures, when to their astonishment they see Wally Bullwinkle board, wearing a yellow hat. They inform Chief Larrimer, who immediately investigates the boarded-up Bullwinkle house and discovers signs that Ginger has been there. The children rush home, where they are amazed to see a brown and white dog racing around their yard in raptures of delight. While Uncle Bennie and Gramma were on their way to Jerry’s party, Uncle Bennie rightly insisted that the stray dog with the frayed rope following them was Ginger. Chief Larrimer apprehends Wally, who had stolen Ginger to train for a circus act with his father. Ginger now is “the happiest dog in Cranbury, and Jerry and Rachel and Uncle Bennie were the happiest children,” and Uncle Bennie, who “had been a hero before just for being an uncle at the age of three—was a hero also for being the one to find Ginger.”

Context

Eleanor Estes received critical acclaim for her fantasy novel The Witch Family (1960), in which pictures that two girls draw of an old witch come to life, and for her realistic novella The Hundred Dresses (1944), a school story that promotes tolerance. She is best remembered, however, for her realistic novels of family and neighborhood life. These are in the manner of E. Nesbit’s Bastable stories and include Ginger Pye, which won the Newbery Award, and its sequel, Pinky Pye (1958), another animal story.

Before the Pye stories, Estes won attention for her three books about the Moffat family, The Moffats (1941), The Middle Moffat (1942), and Rufus M. (1943), also set in Cranbury and even more episodic in structure than Ginger Pye. The second two were Newbery Honor books, and later all three were named to the Children’s Literature Association Touchstones list. Two later novels, The Alley (1964) and its sequel, The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode (1972), are in the same vein and are regarded as entertaining but less inventive.

Estes’ family stories are not memorable for their plots, which are loose and lacking in tension even when they involve a mystery. Her books excel in depiction of place, usually a small, tightly knit community bound by traditional values, such as the Cranbury of the Moffats and the Pyes; in their generous, well-chosen details; and in their vivid characterizations, of which Rachel Pye, Sam Doody, Uncle Bennie, Rufus Moffat, and Connie Ives of The Alley are but a few. The superiority of Estes’ family stories derives from her ability to catch children’s way of thinking, seeing, and speaking—their melodramatic imaginings, literal interpretations, tenacity, and ability to separate their lives even from those of the adults closest to them and to go about their own business with equanimity.

Although not as highly regarded by critics as Estes’ Moffat books, Ginger Pye stands out both in the dog-story genre and as a family novel. It is a warm, sometimes cozy, upbeat book with genuine and likable characters in a well-drawn setting, and it presents important social values without didacticism.