young children – Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories

The Haunted Underwear by Janet Adele Bloss, 1992.

Things have been rough for ten-year-old Kelly Towser since her parents decided to adopt a four-year-old boy named Stevie. For the first part of her life, Kelly was an only child, and now she misses that peaceful period of her life. Now, her parents don’t have as much time to spend with her. Everyone showers little Stevie with attention and presents. Although she doesn’t say so, Kelly worries that maybe her parents adopted Stevie because they were disappointed in her or secretly really wanted a boy instead.

To make things worse, Stevie’s little-kid antics get on Kelly’s nerves. Stevie keeps making messes, throwing his toys all over the place. Kelly’s parents tell her that she used to make a lot of messes when she was little, too. Kelly doesn’t remember doing it, but her parents say that she used to like to throw her clothes all over the place, even hiding her underwear in random locations in the house. They used to joke about her “haunted underwear,” mysteriously showing up in strange places.

Because Kelly complains that Stevie is getting all kinds of presents, and she isn’t, her parents agree to give her a special present to celebrate her getting a new brother. After thinking about it a little, Kelly decides that she wants a new puppy. The family already has a dog named Star, but Kelly thinks that the new puppy could be a friend for Star while she’s at school.

At the pound, Kelly selects a cute brown puppy. One of the workers tells her that the puppy was found abandoned at the side of the road, dirty and hungry. Stevie is excited about the new puppy and wants to play with him, but Kelly is determined to keep the puppy for herself, something that she doesn’t have to share with Stevie. When Stevie insists that the dog’s name is Boscoe because he used to have a dog named Boscoe, Kelly insists that the dog’s name is Jingle. Stevie gets upset that she isn’t sharing the dog, but Kelly doesn’t think that Stevie would be careful with the puppy because he has already pulled Star’s tail.

As older readers might guess, Kelly soon finds herself in a similar position with Jingle as her parents are with Stevie. Star gets jealous of the new puppy in the same way that Kelly is jealous of Stevie, feeling like she’s been replaced in her own house.

Kelly does try to get her parents’ attention with some silly stunts, but when her clothes and underwear mysteriously start appearing around the house, she has no explanation. Her parents punish her, thinking that this is just another attention-getting stunt, but Kelly knows it’s not her. She starts thinking that the real culprit is Stevie, trying to steal her parents’ attention and affection more than he already has. However, there is another explanation for the mysterious underwear ghost, and as Kelly investigates, trying to catch Stevie with her underwear, she learns a number of important things.

I figured out pretty early who was responsible for the underwear around the house, although it helped that I’ve had experience with dogs. Star, feeling neglected because of the new puppy, was trying to get Kelly’s attention in the same way that Kelly was trying to get her parents’ attention. Stevie does look guilty for a while because Kelly discovers that he is a sleepwalker and has been having nightmares. However, when she gets up in the night to catch Stevie sleepwalking with her underwear, she finds Star taking it instead. Understanding Star’s feelings help Kelly to better understand her own feelings, and she resolves to spend more time with Star so she’ll feel less neglected. When her parents discover the truth, they apologize to Kelly and reassure her that they didn’t adopt Stevie as a replacement for her and that they don’t love her any less.

Kelly’s mother also talks to Kelly about what she knows about Stevie’s history. Although they don’t know the names of Stevie’s birth parents, Kelly’s parents know that Stevie’s mother wasn’t married and had no money and gave up him for adoption in the hopes that he would be raised in a more stable home. Stevie has not seen her since he was two years old, two years ago. Stevie is troubled by nightmares because his young life has been very chaotic, and he has been moved from foster home to foster home, with people always giving him up. He deeply fears that his new family will also give him up and is terrified when they seem like they’re going to go somewhere, afraid of that they’ll never come back. That is what his nightmares are really about. Kelly comes to realize that his situation is very much like Jingle’s, that the fact that someone gave him up doesn’t mean that he’s bad and that all he needs is time, attention, and love to grow out of his problems.

Even though things work out okay, this is one of those books where I found myself getting impatient with the parents. I think that some of Kelly’s bad feelings might have been resolved much sooner or avoided altogether if Kelly’s parents had spoken more honestly with her in the beginning, preparing her to be patient with Stevie and to understand when he has problems. Apparently, they did tell her at least some of what they knew about Stevie’s past in the beginning, but they don’t seem to have spoken to her much about how that might influence his behavior and how he will need a lot of time and reassurance to get over his fears.

When I used to volunteer at an animal shelter, we used to tell people who were adopting dogs that they would have to expect that their new dog would destroy something that they owned, especially if it was an energetic young puppy. When you bring a new dog into your house, it doesn’t know the area, it doesn’t know you very well, and it doesn’t know the rules that go with you and your house. It’s almost certain that, soon after arriving, it will relieve itself in the wrong place or pick the wrong thing to use as a chew toy. Something is likely to get ruined or some mess will be made. The best you can do is to take some preemptive measures, like securing valuables, closing the doors to rooms with things that the dog shouldn’t get into, and taking the dog to the place where it should relieve itself immediately on arriving at the new home. These steps can help head off problems, but at the same time, something is still likely to go wrong because the dog needs time to learn what you find acceptable and unacceptable and will probably do something wrong while learning. We didn’t tell the new owners this to scare them off from adopting but to help manage their expectations so that they wouldn’t panic and try to return the new pet at the first sign of trouble. I think that Kelly needed a similar warning about her new brother to help manage her expectations.

Early in the story, Kelly says that when her parents first started talking about adoption, she thought that it would be great because she’s always wanted a little brother that she could teach to do fun things like roller-skating or flying a kite. Her attitude toward her new brother only soured when he seemed to be taking all of her parents’ attention and crying all the time and making messes. She thinks at one point that it’s hard to love someone who seems determined to get you in trouble, which is what she thought Stevie was doing with the underwear. My thought is that, if Kelly’s parents had explained more to her that Stevie might misbehave or be nervous in his new home and would need time to be taught how to live in their family, perhaps Kelly wouldn’t have been so upset and the parents would have been less quick to blame Kelly for the underwear issues. Knowing that there might be some problems that would be temporary would have been reassuring to Kelly that there were better things ahead for her and her new brother.

Also, even though the parents seemed to understand that Kelly was seeking their attention, they didn’t really do anything positive about it at first, just punishing her for leaving the underwear around. If they had told her, straight out, in plain English, that even though they’ve been very busy with Stevie that doesn’t mean that their feelings for her have changed and that she doesn’t need to pull stunts to get their attention because they would be spending some quality time with her soon, it might have helped to head off Kelly’s bad feelings. The closest they get to that at first is when they tell her that she’s old enough to know that there are better ways to get their attention than silly stunts. They don’t mention what the better ways are, and they don’t follow it up with much of an attempt to give her a little attention. What annoyed me most was that Kelly’s mother waited for Kelly to approach her to talk, but in her place, I think I would have taken the initiative, especially after Kelly’s stunts included some potentially dangerous bike stunts. I’m a great believer in direct communication. I tell people if there’s something I want them to know, and if I want to know what they’re thinking, I ask. Over the years, I’ve discovered that if you leave people guessing what you’re thinking or what you want, you discover that most people aren’t good at guessing. I won’t say that Kelly’s parents are the most clueless ones I’ve seen in children’s books because they made more of an attempt to tell Kelly things and talk to her than some other parents in books do. All the same, it always gets to me when problems in books could be avoided with just an extra conversation or two. There were a couple of times in the book when I wished that I could step into the scene, call “Time!”, and make the characters just stop and really talk to each other and take a real look at the situation.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney, 1881.

Mrs. Pepper is a widow who lives with her five children in a little brown house. Since her husband died when their youngest was a baby, she has supported the family by sewing. The children try to help, but they are still very young. The oldest, Ben, is eleven years old, and Polly, the next oldest is ten. Their mother worries about providing them with an education, but they are barely scraping by as it is.

The family manages to get by, helping each other through crises, such as the time when everyone was catching measles. Sometimes, they also get help from friends.

One day, when Phronsie (short for Sophronia), the youngest Pepper, about four years old, wanders off by herself, she is found by a boy named Jasper King and his dog, Prince. They look after her until her brother, Ben, comes to take her home. Jasper enjoys meeting the Pepper family. He doesn’t have any siblings himself, and he thinks that it must be fun to live in a family of five. Jasper and his father are spending the summer at a hotel in nearby Hingham, and Jasper thinks that it’s dull. The Pepper children invite him to come visit again, saying that they will teach him how to bake like Polly does.

Jasper isn’t able to return to their house right away because he gets a cold, and Jasper’s father has been ill. Phronsie thinks that it would be nice to make him a gingerbread man. Together, the children make up a little basket of goodies for Jasper and his father. The Kings are charmed by the gift, and Mr. King decides that he would also like to visit the Pepper family. Unfortunately, due to Mr. King’s poor health and some business he has in “the city”, their visit to the area is cut short. The Pepper children are sad that Jasper will be leaving so soon, but they invite him to return next summer.

Jasper continues to write letters to the family while he’s in the city, studying with the private tutor he shares with his cousins. He remembers the Pepper children telling him that they don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas because they never have enough money to buy a feast or Christmas presents. However, he urges them to try to celebrate Christmas this year, even if it’s only in a small way. The Pepper children make small presents for each other, like paper dolls, doll clothes, toy windmills, and whistles, and put some greenery around for decoration. Jasper also sends the family some surprise presents.

However, Jasper’s father says that he doesn’t want to visit Hingham again because he doesn’t think that the climate there is good for him. Instead, Jasper persuades his family to let him invite Polly for a visit. It takes some persuasion for the Peppers to agree because Mrs. Pepper is hesitant to accept favors and Polly worries about homesickness, but they are persuaded when Jasper says that he has been unwell and that Polly’s visit would cheer him up. In the city, Polly gets her first taste of formal education, even having a music teacher. However, she does get homesick, so the King family sends for little Phronsie to cheer her up. The King family is charmed by both of the girls, and Mr. King gives Phronsie many dolls to play with.

One day, when Polly realizes that she has forgotten to write a letter to their mother because she was so busy with her lessons, Phronsie decides that she will write one herself and mail it. She doesn’t really know how to write, but she scribbles something as best she can and slips out of the house to find the post office. She is almost run over in the street, but fortunately, Mr. King finds her and brings her home. She isn’t hurt, but the incident worries Mr. King.

After some thought, Mr. King decides to invite the rest of the Pepper family for a visit. The day that the rest of the Peppers arrive, Phronsie surprises a pair of thieves in the house. The thieves get away, and the excitement from the incident makes the Peppers’ arrival less exciting than it should have been.

The Peppers fit so well into the household that Mr. King invites the family to live with them permanently. He offers Mrs. Pepper a job as housekeeper and says that he will help the children with their education. Mrs. Pepper accepts, and it leads to the surprising revelation that Mrs. Pepper and John Mason Whitney, the father of Jasper’s cousins, are actually cousins, making them all cousins of the King family as well.

This book is mentioned in the book Cheaper By the Dozen as a book that Mrs. Gilbreth liked to read to her children.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive. It is part of a series.

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Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney, 1881.

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