This story is about six young siblings who literally raise themselves, and did not know right from wrong; the Herdman kids lie, steal, smoke, talk dirty, intimidate other children, and talk back to the adults. The children are not supervised because their father left when Gladys (the youngest) was two, and the mother works two shifts at the shoe factory. When Mrs. Armstrong the pageant director takes a terrible fall in her home, it forces her to delegate all of her duties to the other parent’s, mainly the Christmas pageant. This pageant not only changed the children but the adults also. First, the movie starts off with a bang! In order to amuse themselves, some of the Herdman boys blow up a neighbor's shed, while the other three find their own mischievous deeds to do, like trying to kill their mom’s cat by closing the garage door on the poor animal. The next day at…show more content… Although they came to service, the bad behavior came with them, they defaced the Bibles and took all the money from the collection plate. Before the service was over the minister reminded everyone of the rehearsal for the Christmas pageant, Emagene is quite interested in finding out more about the play, she enlist all of the siblings to attend rehearsal. When the Herdsman’ entered the practice hall the other children were in the process of choosing parts. Emagene took over rehearsal by giving all of the siblings the main parts in the play including giving herself the part of Mary and Ralph the part of Joseph. Once the Herdman’s took over the parts, most of the other children made up excuses to quit, the word spread through the community by the end of the day. Some of the parents were awful they wanted to get rid of the Herdman children, after a fire in the church bathroom everyone thought the pageant should be canceled, even the minister. But, Mrs. Grace was adamant about the play continuing as