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The O'Sullivan Family #3
Pegeen
Young Pegeen, one of the good friends Francie made on his trip around the Emerald Isle, has just lost her Grannie. When she is told that she can't stay on alone in the small mountain cottage, Pegeen remembers Francie's promise to come for her someday. With Fr. Kelly's help she writes to the O'Sullivans, to be welcomed temporarily into their household. No one, except perhaps Francie, is quite prepared for Pegeen's knack of turning the world up on end. Her spirit is a perfect match for his, but two such personalities in one small cottage on Bantry Bay have startling consequences.
Ireland, 1930's
RL4.9
Of read-aloud interest ages 5-up
Ireland, 1930's
RL4.9
Of read-aloud interest ages 5-up
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1941
131 people want to read
About the author
Hilda van Stockum
55 books76 followersBorn February 9, 1908, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Hilda van Stockum was a noted author, illustrator and painter, whose work has won the Newbery Honor and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood Award. She was also a charter member of the Children's Book Guild and the only person to have served as its president for two consecutive terms.
Van Stockum was raised partly in Ireland, and also in Ymuiden, the seaport of Amsterdam, where her father was port commander. With no car and few companions, she recalled turning to writing out of boredom. She was also a talented artist. A penchant for art evidently ran in the family, which counted the van Goghs as distant relatives.
In the 1920s, she worked as an illustrator for the Dublin-based publishing house, Browne & Nolan. She illustrated her first book, an Irish reader, in 1930, and her last book in 2001, giving her a 71-year career as a book-illustrator.
Van Stockum attended art school in Amsterdam and later in Dublin, where she met and later married Ervin Ross "Spike" Marlin, who at the time was her brother Willem's roommate at Trinity College. Willem Van Stockum was killed piloting a bomber over France in 1944. Van Stockum memorialized him in her book The Mitchells (1945), about the travails of raising a family in Washington, D.C., during the war. She often used her family as models for the written and illustrated characters in her books.
Not surprisingly then, Van Stockum was, in fact, raising a family in Washington, D.C., at the time, having married Marlin, who by 1935 was a Roosevelt administration official.
She had written and illustrated her first book for children, A Day on Skates , in 1934. It had a foreword by her aunt-by-marriage, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and won a Newbery Honor. During the next four decades she averaged one book per year written, illustrated, translated or some combination.
Van Stockum and the couple's six children were in tow for Marlin's peripatetic assignments, and it seems nothing short of miraculous that she managed to write and illustrate a score of children's books. In addition, she translated and illustrated editions of many other authors.
Asked in 1942 by the Washington Post how she did it, Van Stockum replied with characteristic aplomb, "By neglecting my other duties." Highly organized in her work, she illustrated and painted in the winter and wrote in the summer, when she could get her children out of the house.
Known for their warm, vivid, and realistic depictions of family life in the face of danger and difficulties, van Stockum's books typically featured families and were set wherever she happened to be living; Francie on the Run (1939), about a child who escapes from a hospital, was set in Ireland. Friendly Gables (1958) completed the Mitchells' saga — by then they had moved to Montreal from Washington.
Her most popular book, The Winged Watchman (1962) is the story of two Dutch boys who help the Resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. The book is based on letters Hilda received from relatives in the Netherlands, and has been praised for conveying an accurate sense of life under Nazi occupation.
Hilda van Stockum died in 2006 at the age of 98.
Van Stockum was raised partly in Ireland, and also in Ymuiden, the seaport of Amsterdam, where her father was port commander. With no car and few companions, she recalled turning to writing out of boredom. She was also a talented artist. A penchant for art evidently ran in the family, which counted the van Goghs as distant relatives.
In the 1920s, she worked as an illustrator for the Dublin-based publishing house, Browne & Nolan. She illustrated her first book, an Irish reader, in 1930, and her last book in 2001, giving her a 71-year career as a book-illustrator.
Van Stockum attended art school in Amsterdam and later in Dublin, where she met and later married Ervin Ross "Spike" Marlin, who at the time was her brother Willem's roommate at Trinity College. Willem Van Stockum was killed piloting a bomber over France in 1944. Van Stockum memorialized him in her book The Mitchells (1945), about the travails of raising a family in Washington, D.C., during the war. She often used her family as models for the written and illustrated characters in her books.
Not surprisingly then, Van Stockum was, in fact, raising a family in Washington, D.C., at the time, having married Marlin, who by 1935 was a Roosevelt administration official.
She had written and illustrated her first book for children, A Day on Skates , in 1934. It had a foreword by her aunt-by-marriage, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and won a Newbery Honor. During the next four decades she averaged one book per year written, illustrated, translated or some combination.
Van Stockum and the couple's six children were in tow for Marlin's peripatetic assignments, and it seems nothing short of miraculous that she managed to write and illustrate a score of children's books. In addition, she translated and illustrated editions of many other authors.
Asked in 1942 by the Washington Post how she did it, Van Stockum replied with characteristic aplomb, "By neglecting my other duties." Highly organized in her work, she illustrated and painted in the winter and wrote in the summer, when she could get her children out of the house.
Known for their warm, vivid, and realistic depictions of family life in the face of danger and difficulties, van Stockum's books typically featured families and were set wherever she happened to be living; Francie on the Run (1939), about a child who escapes from a hospital, was set in Ireland. Friendly Gables (1958) completed the Mitchells' saga — by then they had moved to Montreal from Washington.
Her most popular book, The Winged Watchman (1962) is the story of two Dutch boys who help the Resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. The book is based on letters Hilda received from relatives in the Netherlands, and has been praised for conveying an accurate sense of life under Nazi occupation.
Hilda van Stockum died in 2006 at the age of 98.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 8, 2020
This was a fun read. Pegeen is a lively little Irish girl who learns she must temper her wild behavior.
June 29, 2013
Pegeen is the book in the Bantry Bay trilogy that has a girl as the main character. Pegeen is a wild one, and her antics reveal a lot about the old Ireland, especially the west of Ireland where some horses run wild.
March 30, 2022
Perfect, beautiful book. It immediately takes its place in my heart with other beloved favorites. Beautifully written with an understanding of the very real joys and sorrows of childhood, growing up, and adoption. But filled all the same with rollicking adventures, fairies, and lessons learned for the child readers, and a mother to emulate for the woman finding the book for the first time in adulthood. And the author’s illustrations are perfection.
May 12, 2017
This is third in a trilogy set in Bantry Bay in Co. Kerry.
Pegeen is a little girl - Peig, or Peggy, being short for Margaret for some reason I never understand. The -een means little.
There is no fantasy occurrence which disappointed me as I preferred Patricia Lynch's books about the Turf-Cutter's Donkey. Pegeen and her pals Francie and another boy have mischevious adventures to stave off boredom. Pegeen is staying with her granny who is not well able to run after her. I remember at the start, thinking it strange that in some books kids had to take off shoes to save them for school and Sunday, while in other books kids had to wear shoes because they protected feet from rocks and it was easier to mend shoes than feet. I think in this one the kids go shoeless on the beach.
I don't remember other details but apparently Pegeen's orphaned and waiting to see if she'll be adopted in America. This was an okay read but not my favourite.
Pegeen is a little girl - Peig, or Peggy, being short for Margaret for some reason I never understand. The -een means little.
There is no fantasy occurrence which disappointed me as I preferred Patricia Lynch's books about the Turf-Cutter's Donkey. Pegeen and her pals Francie and another boy have mischevious adventures to stave off boredom. Pegeen is staying with her granny who is not well able to run after her. I remember at the start, thinking it strange that in some books kids had to take off shoes to save them for school and Sunday, while in other books kids had to wear shoes because they protected feet from rocks and it was easier to mend shoes than feet. I think in this one the kids go shoeless on the beach.
I don't remember other details but apparently Pegeen's orphaned and waiting to see if she'll be adopted in America. This was an okay read but not my favourite.
January 12, 2016
The third in the Bantry Bay series by this author, set in rural Ireland. Really fun book. It helps to have read at least the story before, where Pegeen and Francie meet each other, but the book can stand alone. Love the dialect and the descriptions of the children going to school, what they wear, how cherished a simple doll can be. Pegeen is a little girl all of 7 yrs, who lived alone in the hills with her grandmother, has never gone to school, and imagines things bigger than they actually happened, but entrances everyone with her liveliness, her storytelling and her dancing (where she proves that there are different kinds of valuable knowledge, in the stories, folklore and language handed down from her grandmother, and her natural skill and bravery). My 11 yr old and I enjoyed it!
July 26, 2015
This was my least favorite of the three Bantry Bay books. I must admit, I have my favorites and they are Francie and Liam! I wish they would have been in the story more, but it is Pegeen's story so I shouldn't really complain. Pegeen is still a character you will learn to love. Lessons of growing up and many virtues are scattered throughout story as Pegeen, Francie, and friends give us one, last read of exciting adventures!
January 6, 2010
We only got to page 82. We just found it boring and hard to read.
February 23, 2011
A wonderful end to the trilogy. Paul and I just loved reading it, and I think we were both misty eyed at the end.
July 20, 2014
10YO girl liked a lot.
May 20, 2015
A bit more complex than the first two books, but still very enjoyable. This gets into some detail on inter-family relationships.
July 17, 2016
Pegeen is a strong-willed fanciful girl who captured this mother's heart.
October 18, 2016
A bit too cute for me, possibly because there were two books ahead of this. My sympathy was with older sister Bridget, who found it hard to share her family with the mischievous Pegeen.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews