Some classic fantasy tales are just not as well known as they should be. Two of these lesser know stories are Carol Kendall’s two books about the Minnipins who live in a village called Slipper-on-the-Water in The Land Between the Mountains. I love these books because the characters are just as endearing and memorable as Bilbo Baggins or Taran the Assistant Pig-Keeper and the setting is just as immersive as Narnia or Oz. If you are a fan of high fantasy, these two books are must-reads.
The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall. The story of five non-conformist Minnipins who become unlikely heroes. The Periods, stodgy old conservatives with names such as Etc. and Geo., are wonderful parodies of those who are all caught up in the forms and have forgotten the meanings. And Muggles, Mingy, Gummy, Walter the Earl, and Curley Green, the Minnipins who don’t quite fit in and who paint their doors colors other than green, are wonderful examples of those pesky artistic/scientific types who live just outside the rules of polite society. The Gammage Cup was a Newbery Honor book in 1960.
The Whisper of Glocken by Carol Kendall. A sequel to The Gammage Cup, Whisper continues the story of the Minnipins and their isolated valley home. In this story, which takes place among a new generation of Minnipins, the Minnipin valley is being flooded. Five new unlikely heroes—Crustabread, Scumble, Glocken, Gam Lutie, and Silky— set out on a quest to release the dammed river.
There’s not much magic or fairy tale in these books. The “magic” consists of a faraway, imaginary time and place where the battle between good and evil, foolishness and wisdom, plays out among some extraordinary characters who are called to defend their land and their way of life despite their outcast status.
A few of my favorite quotes from The Gammage Cup and The Whisper of Glocken:
“No matter where There is, when you arrive it becomes Here.”
“When you say what you think, be sure to think what you say.”
“You never can tell
From a Minnipin’s hide
What color he is
Down deep inside.”“If you don’t look for Trouble, how can you know it’s there?”
“Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.”
“It was easy to be generous when you had a lot of anything. The pinch came when you had to divide not-enough.”
“No hurry about opening his eyes to see where he was. If he was dead, he wouldn’t be able to open them anyway; and if he was alive, he didn’t feel up to facing whatever had to be faced just now. After a while it occurred to him that he had no business being dead. You couldn’t just selfishly go off dead, leaving your friends to their fate, and still feel easy in your mind.”
“[I]t came to him—–the truth about heroes. You can’t see a hero because heroes are born in the heart and mind. A hero stands fast when the urge is to run, and runs when he would rather take root. A hero doesn’t give up, even when all is lost.”
I may have to re-read The Gammage Cup and The Whisper of Glocken this summer–if someone doesn’t check them out of my library before I can get around to it. One of the Minnipins, Muggles I think, isn’t consciously a nonconformist or an artist; she just gets caught up in the adventures of the others and finds out that she, too, has her own desires and dreams and talents. I loved The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall (b. September 13, 1917) when I was a child, and I still remember images and ideas from it. For instance, I’ve always had a desire to paint my front door red or orange or yellow. And I sort of like being different–sometimes just for the sake of difference.