Sarah, Plain and Tall

When Caleb is born, his mother dies. Caleb’s sister, Anna, is angry with Caleb for causing the death of their mother, but she also loves Caleb.

The whole story of Sarah, Plain and Tall, is filled with beautiful conflicts like these. When Sarah arrives to answer the ad placed by Anna’s father for a mother for Anna and Caleb, Anna is torn. She loved her mother and she loves Sarah. Is that wrong? Sarah, we discover, loved the ocean, but she is now to live in a world with no ocean, a world covered with the tall grass of the prairie. Can she live without her ocean? Even if Anna and Caleb and their father love Sarah, will the love be enough to keep Sarah with them?

Sarah, Plain and Tall

This 1986 winner by Patricia MacLachlan was beautiful. It was short, simple, and a very uplifting story. I think it would especially be good for younger readers (unlike many of the Newbery winners) - a great early chapter book for a 2nd or 3rd grader.

Joanne and RioFrioTex already said a lot of the stuff I thought, so I'm just going to quote a few favorite passages:

A log broke apart and crackled in the fireplace. He looked up at me. "What did I look like when I was born?"

"You didn't have any clothes on," I told him.

"I know that," he said.

"You looked like this." I held the bread dough up in round pale ball.

"I had hair," said Caleb seriously. (p. 4)

__________

We slept in the hay all night, waking when the wind was wild, sleeping again when it was quiet. And at dawn there was the sudden sound of hail, like stones tossed against the barn. We stared out the window, watching the ice marbles bounce on the ground. And when it was over we opened the barn door and walked out in to the early-morning light. The hail crunched and melted beneath our feet. It was white and gleaming for as far as we looked, like sun on glass. Like the sea. (pp. 49-50)

You know, I could just keep quoting and quoting and pretty soon the whole little book would be here in my review. Almost every paragraph is that evocative and solid and shines in its own quiet way.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

I have to say that I love this book. One of the things that I love best about it is that the tone of the writing matches the setting so well--it's sparse and lonely and matches the desolate prairie in which they live. And yet there's stark beauty in it too.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about this, about authors who can write in such a way that the tone reflects the setting. (Tracy Chevalier does this in The Girl with a Pearl Earring and also with The Lady and the Unicorn, I think. Girl is austere like a Vermeer painting and Lady has a richer texture that matches the texture of a tapestry.)

Anyway, Sarah, Plain and Tall is told from the perspective of a young girl and because it's written in her voice, it's really accessible to children. This is something that my third grader would have no trouble reading on her own. The story is simple and plain--just like Sarah. Yet it's one that's also so lovely and real and romantic too.

This is a really short book--much shorter than any of the other Newbery books I've read thus far. You could easily read it in an evening or in an afternoon or two of sitting in the carpool line at school!

My youngest daughter and I also listened to this on CD last summer as we drove across the country. Glenn Close narrated it--a great "listen" if you've got a road trip coming up.

--Joanne (The Simple Wife)