Sarah, Plain and Tall

Sarah, Plain and Tall. By Patricia MacLachlan. Harper Collins, 1985. 64 pages. PLB $16.89 ISBN 978-0-06-024102-5

Summary: Patricia MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall won the Newbery Medal in 1986 and has been a beloved novel of legions of readers from eight to twelve since that time. The novel follows the journey of a young nineteenth-century woman named Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton, who answers Jacob Whittig’s newspaper advertisement for a wife. With her cat, Seal, Sarah travels to the frontier, and helps eke out a living out of the barren landscape. Sarah deeply misses Atlantic breezes, as well as the comforts and traditions of life in Maine. However, she quickly accustoms herself to life on the prairies. Under Sarah’s cheerful guidance, motherless Anna and Caleb blossom. Anna and Caleb absorb some of Sarah’s traditions, such us singing and speaking using a Maine dialect, and Sarah assimilates to country life, learning how to ride a horse and drive a wagon.

Critical Review: Sarah, Plain and Tall demonstrates that while a part of our hearts will always remain homesick for our native land, the potential is there to successfully adapt to different climes while still remaining true to our traditions and creating new traditions, as well.

Genre: Historical Fiction

Reading/Interest Level: 8-12 years

Awards: Newbery Award, 1986; Christopher Book Awards, 1986; Jefferson Cup Award, 1986; Garden State Children’s Book Awards, 1988; Scott O’Dell Historical Fiction Award, 1986, Nominated for Mark Twain Award, 1988; Nominated for Flicker Tale Children’s Book Award, 1988

Reviews: School Library Journal (May 1, 2002); Booklist (June 15, 1997)

Series: Sarah, Plain and Tall Series

Similar Materials: the following four books in the “Sarah, Plain and Tall Series”: Skylark, Caleb’s Story, More Perfect than the Moon, and Grandfather’s Dance; Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie Series: Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of the Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, On the Way Home, The First Four Years

Subjects/Themes: stepmothers, frontier and pioneer life, loneliness, moving

Character Names: Anna (the narrator who misses her dead mother); Caleb (Anna’s younger brother); Jacob Whittig (Anna and Caleb’s father); Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton (becomes Jacob’s wife and moves out West)

Author Biography: Authors and illustrators: Patricia MacLachlan. (n. d.). Retrieved from http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/Kids/AuthorsAndIllustrators/ContributorDetail.aspx?CId=12425

EMBA’s top 100 authors: Patricia MacLachlan. (n. d.) Retrieved from http://www.edupaperback.org/showauth.cfm?authid=34

Meet the author: Patricia MacLachlan. (2007, February 7 [date last edited]. Retrieved from http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmr/mtai/maclachlan.html

Patricia MacLachlan (2010, October 18 [date last edited]). Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_MacLachlan

Patricia MacLachlan (1938-). Retrieved from http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2148/MacLachlan-Patricia-1938.html

Author Interview: (2009). Talking with Patricia MacLachlan. Retrieved from http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/features/A1086.html

Programming Ideas and/or Lesson Plans:  Bodin, S. (2009, January 7). Sarah plain and tall interactives. Retrieved from http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/cc/vp_gle/4th/ela/trophy_inter/bk3/sarah.htm

Denega, D. (2004). A reading guide to Sarah, plain and tall, by Patricia MacLachlan. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/kids/homework/pdfs/Sarah_Plain_and_Tall.pdf

DeSpirt, D. (2008). Sarah plan and tall: Teaching vocabulary strategies using novel study. Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/sarah-plain-and-tall-lesson-plan-a83214

Neblett, E. (1999, November 16 [date last edited]). Sarah, plain and tall. Retrieved from http://home.earthlink.net/~lizneb/sarah.html

Nielsen, C. (2002). Sarah, plain and tall, by Patricia MacLachlan. Retrieved from http://www.pls.uni.edu/nielsen/nielsen/spatintro.html

Mountain City Elementary. (2010, October 26 [date last edited]). Sarah, plain and tall. Retrieved from http://www.mce.k12tn.net/reading3/sarah.htm

Brief Annotation: A nineteenth-century woman answers a personals ad placed in a Maine paper for a wife, and moves out West.