I love this book and so naturally I have very little to say about it. Reading it again after a quarter century (at least) did solve one burning question. I couldn't understand why I'd always imagined Walter the Earl as taller than the others, but the answer lies on page 188 of the 1959 edition. There's an illustration of Walter rallying the Minnipins to fight the invading Mushrooms and he stands head and shoulders above the rest. It's a tribute to the power of illustration that I remembered Walter's height when I'd forgotten so much else. I don't know why he's depicted in this fashion, but the other villagers seem like halflings by comparison. Yes, halflings. Let's face it - the Minnipins or Small Ones are hobbits by any other name and their foe, the Mushroom people, are the sort of thing that might well appear in a hobbit nightmare after too much Cheese and Mushroom Pie.

The Minnipins are possibly no more conformist than hobbits, but their desire for conformity is made to seem oppressive in a way that hobbit talk down at The Ivy Bush never does. The three eccentric villagers known as 'Them' (Curley Green, Gummy and Walter the Earl) remain unmarried, wear cloaks of altogether the wrong hue (that is, not green), and don't have regular employment. They are tolerated, but only just.

"...Walter the Earl spent his time digging holes in the ground in his ridiculous search for hidden treasures; Curley Green was usually to be seen sitting on her stool in a corner of the market place, blobbing pictures onto stretched reed-paper, and Gummy--well, Gummy was bone-idle.

Gummy was never seen doing anything but wearing a dreamy look along with his sun-colored cloak and peaked hat. He disappeared for hours at a time in his tiny boat, but where he went and what he did nobody knew, though there were rumors aplenty. Only two things were surely known about Gummy: he was overfond of childish pranks, and he made rhymes. Not proper poems, such as the one brought back by Fooley, now hanging in the museum, but scribbles--nonsense rhymes about rain and birds and flowers and the wind, and they bubbled out of him as water bubbles from a spring.

Then, of course, there was Muggles."

Muggles is the author's principal pov character and Muggles, who is otherwise a steady sort in spite of her orange sash and her tendency to keep her possessions in heaps on the floor rather than in cupboards and drawers where they belong, is drawn into the company of 'Them' quite involuntarily and proves to be the glue that ultimately holds them all together as they face disapproval and exile.

This book, like Seven-Day Magic, doffs its cap to The Wizard of Oz, but the Minnipins, unlike the Munchkins (and I only know the Oz movie, so bear with my analogy) face a threat from the descendants of their 'Wizard'--the balloonist, Fooley--which is almost as dangerous as the threat from without.

I have no idea what I thought of the Mushrooms when I first read The Gammage Cup. Uncritically horrified, I should say. Now I'd be just as happy if they weren't there at all, as what I prefer to take away with me is the cosiness of Gummy's house on the Little Trickle, made of a "haphazard collection of stones...slapped together with river clay", its roof of woven willow wands "which scarcely leaked at all except on one side, and then only when it rained", and rising in the morning to "the spicy scent of herb tea and the teasing warm aroma of pat-cakes drifting from Gummy's stone house."

"After a quick wash in the chill waters of the Little Trickle, they appeared at the door to find the house glistening with cleanliness. The heaps of stuff they had brought from the village and dumped willy-nilly on the floor were carefully sorted and put away on shelves and in barrels and baskets.

'There is nothing tidier than a good neat pile,' Muggles explained, 'as long as there's just one person in the house. But it won't do for five, I can see that. So we'll just have to muddle along with everything hidden away until we each have a house of our own.'"

Now there's a housekeeper after my own heart.

Read this for school

A childhood book that I found myself re-reading in my ongoing quest to avoid finishing "loftier" works by David Foster Wallace and Ann Pancake, The Gammage Cup was more subversive then I remembered, although I wasn't quite sure why the enemy was wiped out in such a blood bath. So little was known about then, except that they smelled like mushrooms (and you would think that would be a good thing) and said "kindeth" a lot. I guess they also had a bunch of poison spears that they didn't hesitate to use. A clever, satisfying fantasy. If you read only one book this year, it should be about watercress farmers, right?

It was a good story overall but lacked the imagery I enjoy when putting the picture of a book together in my head.

This was one of my favorite books when I was young, and I'm glad to say that it's held up marvelously over the years. I didn't know when I was 10 how much I'd enjoy a story with adult protagonists when I was more their age, but gosh, Muggles reminds me very strongly of a friend of mine, and the rest of the outlaws seem very familiar with their creative lifestyles and clear hyperfixations.

I'm very glad that I found a used copy of this book to replace the one I lost after high school.

3.5⭐️

They were a band of outcasts who saved the whole village in more than one way. I just love this story, it has all of the elements that are my favorite and the ending just makes the whole novel.

I read this book as a child and wanted to introduce it to the kids in my creative writing class as an example of a strong fantasy novel from before their time. I 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. 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 help represent the otherwise well-conceived characters. I recommend this book for those readers with strong vocabularies and big appetites for fantasy worlds.

One of my favorite books as a child! I loved the quiet heroism of the main characters, who are all memorable and interesting. Yay for outcasts!