Kirkus Reviews QR Code
PEPPER POT by Barbara Clayton

PEPPER POT

By

Pub Date: Sept. 27th, 1965
Publisher: Funk & Wagnalls

Quarry Falls, Mass., seems unbearably provincial to Melanie Brooks after nearly ten years in Paris, France. The family has gone to Quarry Falls for several reasons: the preacher father's health, the little retarded sister's (called, believe it or not, Angel Unaware) schooling, and the fact that the town virtually belongs to Melanie's maternal grandfather Leigh, via his business, Leigh Papers. The Brookses, of course, are no snobs; the girls go to public school, even if all three do have the same middle name, Leigh. Melanie is the ""pepper pot,"" but she's right-minded. She stands up for her family's plebeian ways, even to the point of taking a paper route, starting a play group for her retarded sister, and attempting to settle a strike. Finally she sells Grandpa on the idea of establishing a special school so that little Angel Unaware will not have to be sent away. ... She's a do-gooder teenager in a not-so-good book.