By: Barbara Robinson
The Herdmans are six scrawny children ( Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie and Gladys) who are notorious delinquents in their community. Among other things, they lie, steal, smoke cigars (even the girls!), swear, and hit little kids.The story is narrated by Beth Bradley, a girl in Imogene Herdman's class. Beth's brother, Charlie, unwisely lies to Leroy Herdman, saying that he doesn't mind Leroy stealing his dessert at school because Charlie gets all the snacks he wants at Sunday School. This leads to all six Herdmans showing up at church the next Sunday for the first time in their lives.
Beth's mother is put in charge of the Christmas pageant when the original leader, Mrs. Helen Armstrong, fells and breaks her leg. The announcement for the auditions happens to be on the day the Herdmans show up at church, and, avid movie fans that they are, the Herdman's volunteer (and threaten) their way into all six of the main parts.
In spite of the Herdmans never having heard the Christmas story before (and wanting to change the script so they can hunt down the evil King Herod) and in spite of never making it through a complete rehearsal, the show must go on.
About the Author
I grew up in a southern Ohio river town--Portsmouth--and that small town atmosphere has affected most of my writing. My mother, widowed when I was three years old, taught school for forty-nine years in that same small town, and her major (indeed, only) extravagance was books. I grew up with, and quickly adopted, the notion that reading was the only way to fill up every scrap of loose time you could snatch.
I had the benefit, as well, of a wide variety of aunts and uncles and cousins, plus the extended family so common to small-town life--the neighbors, friends, teachers, bus drivers, mailmen, local heroes and local neer-do-wells, and even a local blacksmith . . . great stuff to feed the imagination.
I began writing very early--poems, plays, stories--and just never quit. I attended local schools and then, being both bookstruck and stagestruck, found a college--Allegheny College--where I could satisfy both passions.
I've been a short story writer, with some forty to fifty stories in McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, etc.; a playwright; an occasional poet, and finally and most happily, an author of children's books . . . happily, because there's no greater audience than boys and girls who read books and demand that those books be the most exciting, the most mysterious, the most touching, the funniest . . . the best.
I live and write in a suburb of Philadelphia, and I have two daughters--Carolyn, who is a nurse, and Marjorie, who is a sixth grade teacher and at home now with my grandchildren Tomas and Marcos, and all these people read books like crazy!
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