The Gammage Cup [Hardcover]

Carol Kendall (Author), Erik Blegvad (Author), Erik Blevgad (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: Carol Kendall's Tales of the Minnipins

Carol Kendall's witty, epic tales about the race of people called the Minnipins are now available as Odyssey/Harcourt Young Classics. Now a new generation of readers can thrill to the adventures of the tiny folk who become mighty heroes. The original interior illustrations by Erik Blegvad and Imero Gobbato have been retained, but vibrant new cover art by beloved illustrators Tim and Greg Hildebrandt gives the books a new look for a new audience.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This highly creative fantasy [has] an almost inexhaustible variety of reading pleasures: plot surprises, humor, fascinating characters, richness of ideas, and delight in words.—The Horn Book
"Highly imaginative, amusing and thought-provoking."—The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

When Carol Kendall was twenty-nine, she published her first book. She has since written more than a half dozen much-loved books for young readers.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books (February 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152024875
• ISBN-13: 978-0152024871
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 5.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #326,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cozy, bold, welcoming story, March 22, 2000

By 

Andrew Rasanen (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
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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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nicely told, pleasant fantasy, April 21, 2001

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gammage Cup: A Novel of the Minnipins (Paperback)

A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. The rising tide caused by the phenomenal success of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books has indeed lifted the boats of many writers of children's fantasy. One of the oddest cases is perhaps Carol Kendall, and her book The Gammage Cup. This is hardly an unsuccessful book: it was first published in 1959, and it was a Newbery Honor Book. It was reprinted at least as recently as 1990. But besides the fact that The Gammage Cup is a succesful children's fantasy, it has another, insignificant but curious, link with Rowling's work: the use of the word "Muggles". To be sure, Muggles in The Gammage Cup is a character name, but nonetheless, Kendall's book is certainly proof enough that the word has a long history in children's fantasy.

Harcourt is reissuing this novel again in 2000. I will confess that I had not previously heard of it, despite having read a great many children's fantasies, and for that matter a great many Newbery Award and Newbery Honor books. But I'm glad to have seen it now. It's a decent book, very readable, displaying a nice touch for the cute turn of phrase, and with several clever notions. That said, it's a fairly minor book: pleasant enough but no patch on Alan Garner, or Lloyd Alexander, or Susan Cooper, or even J. K. Rowling. It's also very tempting to try to think of the book in allegorical terms, not necessarily to its benefit.

The story is set in a small village in an idyllic valley. Centuries before, the Minnipins fled their drought-ridden land, as well as the evil "Mushrooms", and found their way to this valley. Now their past is all but forgotten. The townspeople of Slipper-on-the-Water live comfortable, complacent, and mostly conformist lives. They remember the centuries-past exploits of the great Fooley, who took a balloon over the mountains to their old land, and returned with some relics. Fooley's descendants, the Periods (called so for a cute reason I'll not reveal), are the leaders of the town. Everybody wears green cloaks, and paints their doors green, except for a few outcasts, called "them".

The main character is Muggles, a woman who runs the local museum (mostly housing artifacts Fooley brought with him from over the mountains). She is dangerously close to being one of "them", because though she wears a green cloak she sometimes belts it with an orange sash. As the story proper opens she notices something strange happening in the nearby mountains, and two of "them", the idler and poet Gummy, and the historian Walter the Earl, seem to be involved. Muggles is drawn closer and closer to "them" as the rest of the town, led by the Periods, whips itself into paroxysms of ultraconformity, in an attempt to win the "Gammage Cup". Finally Muggles and her friends are outlawed, even as they become convinced that the whole valley could be in great danger from over (or through) the mountains.

Naturally the outlaws save the day in the end, leading the fight against the menace from the desolate lands outside the valley. The story is throughout pleasantly and cleverly told, and the characters, particularly Muggles and her friends, are well-depicted. It is very tempting to try to think of the book in allegorical terms, not necessarily to its benefit. Read in this way, the book is clearly a warning against 1950s conformist tendencies. It's also a warning against the threat from "outside the valley", and this is one way the book falls down. This threat is seen as completely unhuman, and worthy simply of killing. In the context of the book this is no doubt the only option, but it made me feel a bit queasy.

The Gammage Cup is certainly a very enjoyable book to read. The witty word play is perhaps the most enjoyable aspect. But it falls some way short of excellence. I'm glad to have it still in print, but it stands at best in the second rank of the great children's fantasies.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For strong readers, June 23, 2006

By 

Lee Edward Fodi "Children's Author & Illustrator" (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gammage Cup: A Novel of the Minnipins (Paperback)

We read this book as part of the creative writing class that I teach, and I was quite surprised at how this book played out with my young students (aged 8-12). I wanted to introduce them to a fantasy novel that many of them had never heard of and was amused to show them that Rowling hadn't actually invented the word "Muggles" (it's the name of the main character in "The Gammage Cup"). What I did find surprising is that many of my students found this book a difficult read and were confused about many different aspects of the story. As an adult, I quite enjoyed the humor in this book. In particular, I loved the mistaken identification of what is a "painting" versus what is a "family tree; but case in point--for many of my students just didn't get this joke and I find once a young reader loses interest in a book, they just give up on it. I think part of the problem is that the characters in this book do not paint strong visuals in the minds of modern readers. I find many of my students live in a highly-visualized world; perhaps this is a case of their imaginations not being so active or strong as the children in author Carol Kendall's day (or for that matter, mine), but nonetheless, perhaps this book would benefit from stronger illustrations that helped represent the otherwise well-conceived characters. I expected this to be a hit with my kids--I was wrong, but I still like this book and recommend it for those readers with strong vocabularies and big appetites for fantasy novels.