The Gammage Cup: A Newbery Honor Award Winner

I remember reading this book in elementary school. I read it so many times that it lingered in the back of my mind all through high school and into adulthood. When my girls were what I thought old enough for me to read the book to them, I went out and found the book and bought it.As I was surfing through the vast array of books, here it was again, the Muggles, with all their differences, colored front doors and curiousity for things not on the straight and narrow, words that didn't follow the rules set out by the high ranking Periods. The book always pulled at me, causing me to see that each of us are different and we need to celebrate these differences, because after all, that is what makes our world so unique. Purchase the book, check it out from your local library, if they don't carry the book, make them purchase it. Read it yourself and float back to those lazy adolesence days, read it to your children and bask in their joy of a new adventure and remember when you too were in awe of the simple joy of a well written story.

Of the many words to describe this book, Wow is definatly one of them! This book was the best book i have read in a long time, and it was required reading! The minnipins of slipper on the water are usually very mellow and follow everything that the periods, their leaders, say. They all dressed and acted the same. But when a contest to see whose town is the best comes along, people start showing indivituality. There are 5 of them, Oh Thems. Muggles Mingy Gummy Curly Green and Walter the Earl. The town outlaws them and send them up the river. While near the mountains, strange things start to happen. Creatures are going to attack Slipper on the water! Can the 5 outlaws save the town they once loved? Find out in... The Gamage Cup.

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.

When I first read "The Gammage Cup," I fell in love with the five misfits of Slipper-On-the-Water: I knew exactly how they felt. Through elementary school and middle school, I was always the odd one out, my peculiarities carefully noted by the mainstream group and mercilessly persecuted. The message was quite clear: if you do not comform, you are not welcome. For that reason, it was with particular joy that I watched Muggles, Mingy, Gummy, Curley Green, and Walter the Earl refuse to conform to the stultifying sameness of their village, and in fact use their outsider status to save the Minnipins. Foremost in "The Gammage Cup" is the message that difference is to be valued, not squelched, and that those who dare to be individual are the true heroes; philosophy aside, "The Gammage Cup" is a wild and wonderful read, full of humor, adventure, danger, some peculiar poetry, several proverbs, and even a bit of romance. The characters, even those you can't stand, are vividly drawn; the five main characters are colorful, eccentric, and thoroughly likable. The isolated world of the Land Between the Mountains is a great place to visit time and time again--though you might not want to live there. Give it a try if you haven't yet. "Hail, hail, to our outlaws bold..."