The Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden

First published: 1975; illustrated

Type of work: Domestic realism

Themes: Family, friendship, animals, social issues, death, and coming-of-age

Time of work: From just before Christmas to late fall of 1902

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: The town of Norfolk, England

Principal Characters:

• Poll Greengrass, a willful, determined schoolgirl of nine, who is the youngest child in the Greengrass family
• Theo Greengrass, her small, thin, delicate brother of ten
• Lily Greengrass, her tall, pretty older sister, almost fourteen, who aspires to be an actress
• George Greengrass, her studious older brother, a calm, sensible youth of fifteen
• Emily Greengrass, their capable, resourceful mother, who is a dressmaker
• Aunt Sarah, their father’s stern, businesslike sister, who is headmistress of the local girls’ school
• Aunt Harriet, their father’s tall, merry sister, who teaches the infants’ class at Sarah’s school
• Noah Bugg, a tall, rangy boy who blackmails Theo

The Story

Three interlocking mysteries and a family’s involvement with a pet pig unify the plot of The Peppermint Pig, in which the loosely connected events are seen mainly from the point of view of imaginative, headstrong, nine-year-old Poll, the youngest of the four Greengrass children. Banished to sit under the table because she has been naughty, Poll overhears a conversation between her parents. She learns that, though innocent, her father, James, a carriage painter, has taken the blame for a theft at his firm to protect his father and the owner’s son. He then leaves to seek his fortune in America, and the family moves to Norfolk to live with his sisters, Aunt Sarah, the stern headmistress of a girls’ school, and jolly Aunt Harriet, who teaches the youngest pupils at the same school.

Poll’s brother Theo, however, concludes that James has seized this opportunity to go adventuring. Later, when James’s former employer, Old Rowland, shows up to proclaim James’s innocence to Emily, their mother, Theo decides James may really have been a thief, since he brought home slivers of left-over gold leaf for the children to decorate Christmas cards, and he buries the box in the garden by the summerhouse.

The gold leaf figures in the second mystery, too, which revolves around Grandpa Greengrass. One morning Poll encounters an old man in the summerhouse and immediately assumes he is a tramp. When she reports his presence and request for breakfast to Emily and the aunts, she learns that Grandpa Greengrass abandoned his family years before to go adventuring but turns up occasionally for handouts. Apparently his untimely appearance in London at the Rowland firm and his black-sheep reputation were other reasons James took the blame for the theft. Before Grandpa Greengrass moves on, Poll, wishing to give him some gold leaf to mark this momentous occasion, finds the box empty.

A confrontation with Theo over the gold leaf leads to the solution of the third mystery, Theo’s friendship with bully Noah Bugg. On impulse, Theo stole an egg from the market and has been buying Noah’s silence with slivers of gold leaf.

Still another important unifying thread concerns Johnnie, a peppermint, or runt, pig Emily buys for a shilling from the milkman. Although everyone in the family is fond of him, Poll especially finds Johnnie a comfort in these unfamiliar, perplexing surroundings. Even though hints of Johnnie’s fate occasionally appear, she remains oblivious to them and becomes emotionally attached to him. In late fall, Aunt Harriet tries to soften the impending blow by getting Poll a puppy, but Johnnie’s departure for the butcher proves so traumatic that Poll faints when she sees carcasses hanging in the butcher’s window and refuses to eat until George bribes her with money to buy a collar for the dog. By the end, when James returns and wonders who Johnnie is, Poll has come to see that life goes on despite problems, that things never stay the same, and that adjustments are an essential part of living.

Context

Bawden was noted for her novels for adults before she also began writing for children. Her earlier books for young readers, like Three on the Run (1964) and The Witch’s Daughter (1966), are exciting but improbable escapist stories. With Squib (1971), she turned to realistic family life and soon won attention for her ability to present home situations accurately from the viewpoint of the children involved.

She often places children in positions where, like Poll, they make important and sometimes painful discoveries. In The Robbers (1979), a youth from a privileged family learns that the criminal justice system deals more harshly with the less advantaged than with his own social class. In Kept in the Dark (1982), children see at first hand how seemingly strong adults can be rendered helpless, and in The Outside Child (1989), a girl learns quite by accident that her father has another family whom he has kept secret. Squib (1971) shows children from functioning, caring homes becoming aware of child abuse, while Carrie’s War (1973), an autobiographical story of evacuee children in Wales during World War II, has the protagonist being forced to adjust to life with a shallow, mean-spirited guardian.

Bawden displays exceptional skill at capturing the child’s surrealistic view of things. The title character in Carrie’s War, like Poll in The Peppermint Pig, comes to the wrong conclusions because she lacks experiential knowledge and thus is unable to sort out fact from fancy. Poll and Theo thrill to the grotesquerie of the chopped-finger story, concerned not about the effect on Grandma Greengrass but about whether the finger spouted blood. At the Harvest Fair, Poll lurks about the tooth-pulling booth half-hoping for the sight of blood and sounds of pain, and the romantic gypsies and Bride’s Pit, the pond where local legend says a bride and groom drowned, fascinate her.

The Peppermint Pig, which received the Guardian Award, is a complex and highly textured picture of a family who triumphs over adversity through perseverance and cooperation. It is the story of a young girl who comes to terms with her life and who learns to look forward to the future with hope that she and her family can meet whatever challenges life may bring.