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Sinopse: Jacob (Christopher Walker), um viúvo com dois filhos, coloca um anúncio no jornal procurando por uma esposa. Sarah (Glenn Close), uma solteirona do Maine, aceita o desafio e dirige-se à fazenda para ver se pode fazer a diferença na vida daquela família.
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SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL – Arvind Gupta Toys
I am enclosing a book of sea birds so you will see what William and I see every day. Very truly yours,. Sarah Elisabeth Wheaten. Caleb read and read the letter …
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Download Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF Free & Read Online
Sarah Plain and Tall is one of the best children’s books written by Patricia MacLachlan. Sarah, Plain and Tall won various awards such as the Newbery Medal …
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Sarah, Plain and Tall – PDF Drive
Reinforced concrete design of tall building … How to Book …
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Full text of “SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL” – Internet Archive
SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL Patricia MacLachlan Winner of the Newbery Medal “D … I am enclosing a book of sea birds so you will see what William and I see …
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Sarah, Plain And Tall By Patricia MacLachlan – Panot Book
And I forgot to say good night. Author, Patricia MacLachlan. Language, English. Pages, 29. PDF Size, 107.5 KB.
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sarah-plain-and-tall-bookfile.pdf – Scholastic
Summary: Discusses the writing, characters, plot, and themes of this 1986 Newbery Award–winning book. Includes discussion questions and activities. Includes …
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Sách Ebooks PDF, Epub, Prc Sarah, plain and tall Nguồn gốc: HarperCollins Publishers, Tác giả: Patricia MacLachlanNXBHarperCollins s IncNăm XB03/03/2015,
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Read our review and summary of Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachian and download Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF ebook free at the end.
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Sarah, Plain and Tall – PDF Free Download – DocPlayer.net
Scholastic BookFiles A READING GUIDE TO Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan Danielle Denega Copyright 2004 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved.
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Sarah Plain and Tall | PDF – Scribd
Sarah Plain and Tall – Free download as PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or read online for free. A teachers gue to patricia MacLachlan’s \ Sarah, …
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Download Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF Free & Read Online
Sarah Plain and Tall is one of the best children’s books written by Patricia MacLachlan. Sarah, Plain and Tall won various awards such as the Newbery Medal of the year 1986, Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction of the year 1986 and Golden Kite Award of the same year. Sarah, Plain and Tall describe the themes of adaption of change, abandonment and loneliness. You can download Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF at the end.
Review of Sarah, Plain and Tall:
Sarah, Plain and Tall were followed by four more exploring the Witting family after the arrival of Sarah: Grandfather’s Dance, More Perfect Than the Moon, Caleb’s Story and Skylark. The first three novels such as Sarah, Plain and Tall, Celeb’s Story and Skylark served as a basis for three television movies such as Plain and Tall: Winter’s End, Plain and Tall: Skylark. The screenplay for these movies was provided by MacLachlan. All three, starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken are the same actors working on the roles of Caleb, Anna, Jacob and Sarah. Sarah, Plain and Tall got various reviews from critics and is nominated for various awards.
Features of Sarah, Plain and Tall pdf:
Sarah, Plain and Tall are written by well known American author Patricia MacLachlan.
The novel is written in English language and is published in the United States.
Sarah, Plain and Tall come under the Genre of Children’s novel.
Sarah, Plain and Tall are published by Harper and Row for the first time in the United States.
Sarah, Plain and Tall is published in April 1985.
Sarah, Plain and Tall is a very short novel consisting of only 58 pages.
Sarah, Plain and Tall are followed by Plain and Tall: Skylark.
Sarah, Plain and Tall explain themes of changing with the passage of time, abandonment and loneliness.
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Sarah, Plain and Tall
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Full text of “SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL”
Full text of “SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL”
SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL Patricia MacLachlan Winner of the Newbery Medal “Did Mama sing every day?” asked Caleb. “Every-single- day?” He sat close to the fire, his chin in his hand. It was dusk, and the dogs lay beside him on the warm hearthstones. “Every-single-day,” I told him for the second time this week. For the twentieth time this month. The hundredth time this year! And the past few years? “And did Papa sing, too!” “Yes. Papa sang, too. Don’t get so close, Caleb. You’ll heat up.” He pushed his chair back. It made a hollow scraping sound on the hearthstones, and the dogs stirred. Lottie, small and black, wagged her tail and lifted her head. Nick slept on. I turned the bread dough over and over on the marble slab on the kitchen table. “Well, Papa doesn’t sing anymore,” said Caleb very softly. 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 a round pale ball. “I had hair,” said Caleb seriously. “Not enough to talk about,” I said. “And she named me Caleb,” he went on, filling in the old familiar story. “I would have named you Troublesome,” I said, making Caleb smile. “And Mama handed me to you in the yellow blanket and said …” He waited for me to finish the story. “And said … ?” I sighed. “And Mama said, ‘Isn’t he beautiful, Anna” ” “And I was,” Caleb finished. Caleb thought the story was over, and I didn’t tell him what I had really thought. He was homely and plain, and he had a terrible holler and a horrid smell. But these were not the worst of him. Mama died the next morning. That was the worst thing about Caleb. “Isn’t he beautiful, Anna!” Her last words to me. I had gone to bed thinking how wretched he looked. And I forgot to say good night. I wiped my hands on my apron and went to the window. Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down. Though winter was nearly over, there were patches of snow and ice everywhere. I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn’t. Slowly, one by one, they left. And then the days seemed long and dark like winter days, even though it wasn’t winter. And Papa didn’t sing. Isn’t he beautiful, Anna? No, Mama. It was hard to think of Caleb as beautiful. It took three whole days for me to love him, sitting in the chair by the fire, Papa washing up the supper dishes, Caleb’s tiny hand brushing my cheek. And a smile. It was the smile, I know. “Can you remember her songs!” asked Caleb. “Mama’s songs?” I turned from the window. “No. Only that she sang about flowers and birds. Sometimes about the moon at nighttime.” Caleb reached down and touched Lottie’s head. “Maybe,” he said, his voice low, “if you remember the songs, then I might remember her, too.” My eyes widened and tears came. Then the door opened and wind blew in with Papa, and I went to stir the stew. Papa put his arms around me and put his nose in my hair. “Nice soapy smell, that stew,” he said. I laughed. “That’s my hair ” Caleb came over and threw his arms around Papa’s neck and hung down as Papa swung him back and forth, and the dogs sat up. “Cold in town,” said Papa. “And Jack was feisty.” Jack was Papa’s horse that he’d raised from a colt. “Rascal,” murmured Papa, smiling, because no matter what Jack did Papa loved him. I spooned up the stew and lighted the oil lamp and we ate with the dogs crowding under the table, hoping for spills or handouts. Papa might not have told us about Sarah that night if Caleb hadn’t asked him the question. After the dishes were cleared and washed and Papa was filling the tin pail with ashes, Caleb spoke up. It wasn’t a question, really. “You don’t sing anymore,” he said. He said it harshly. Not because he meant to, but because he had been thinking of it for so long. “Why?” he asked more gently. Slowly Papa straightened up. There was a long silence, and the dogs looked up, wondering at it. “I’ve forgotten the old songs,” said Papa quietly. He sat down. “But maybe there’s a way to remember them.” He looked up at us. “How!” asked Caleb eagerly. Papa leaned back in the chair. “I’ve placed an advertisement in the newspapers. For help.” “You mean a housekeeper?” I asked, surprised. Caleb and I looked at each other and burst out laughing, remembering Hilly, our old housekeeper. She was round and slow and shuffling. She snored in a high whistle at night, like a tea-kettle, and let the fire go out. “No,” said Papa slowly. “Not a housekeeper.” He paused. “A wife.” Caleb stared at Papa. “A wife? You mean a Mother? ” Nick slid his face onto Papa’s lap and Papa stroked his ears. “That, too,” said Papa. “Like Maggie.” Matthew, our neighbor to the south, had written to ask for a wife and mother for his children. And Maggie had come from Tennessee. Her hair was the color of turnips and she laughed. Papa reached into his pocket and unfolded a letter written on white paper. “And I have received an answer.” Papa read to us: “Dear Mr. Jacob Witting, “I am Sarah Wheaten from Maine as you will see from my letter. I am answering your advertisement. I have never been married, though I have been asked. I have lived with an older brother, William, who is about to be married. His wife-to-be is young and energetic. “I have always loved to live by the sea, but at this time I feel a move is necessary. And the truth is, the sea is as far east as I can go. My choice, as you can see, is limited. This should not be taken as an insult. I am strong and I work hard and I am willing to travel. But I am not mild mannered. If you should still care to write, I would be interested in your children and about where you live. And you. Very truly yours, Sarah Elisabeth Wheaten “P.S. Do you have opinions on cats? I have one.” No one spoke when Papa finished the letter. He kept looking at it in his hands, reading it over to himself. Finally I turned my head a bit to sneak a look at Caleb. He was smiling. I smiled, too. “One thing,” I said in the quiet of the room. “What’s that?” asked Papa, looking up. I put my arm around Caleb. “Ask her if she sings,” I said. 2 Caleb and Papa and I wrote letters to Sarah, and before the ice and snow had melted from the fields, we all received answers. Mine came first. Dear Anna, Yes, I can braid hair and I can make stew and bake bread, though I prefer to build bookshelves and print. My favorite colors are the colors of the sea, blue and gray and green, depending on the weather. My brother William is a fisherman, and he tells me that when he is in the middle of a fog- bound sea the water is a color for which there is no name. He catches flounder and sea bass and bluefish. Sometimes he sees whales. And birds, too, of course. I am enclosing a book of sea birds so you will see what William and I see every day. Very truly yours, Sarah Elisabeth Wheaten Caleb read and read the letter so many times that the ink began to run and the folds tore. He read the book about sea birds over and over. “Do you think she’ll come?” asked Caleb. “And will she stay? What if she thinks we are loud and pesky?” “You are loud and pesky,” I told him. But I was worried, too. Sarah loved the sea, I could tell. Maybe she wouldn’t leave there after all to come where there were fields and grass and sky and not much else. “What if she comes and doesn’t like our house!” Caleb asked. “I told her it was small. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her it was small.” “Hush, Caleb. Hush.” Caleb’s letter came soon after, with a picture of a cat drawn on the envelope. Dear Caleb, My cat’s name is Seal because she is gray like the seals that swim offshore in Maine. She is glad that Lottie and Nick send their greetings. She likes dogs most of the time. She says their foot- prints are much larger than hers (which she is enclosing in return). Your house sounds lovely, even though it is far out in the country with no close neighbors. My house is tall and the shingles are gray because of the salt from the sea. There are roses nearby. Yes, I do like small rooms sometimes. Yes, I can keep a fire going at night. I do not know if I snore. Seal has never told me. Very truly yours, Sarah Elisabeth “Did you really ask her about fires and snoring?” I asked, amazed. “I wished to know,” Caleb said. He kept the letter with him, reading it in the barn and in the fields and by the cow pond. And always in bed at night. One morning, early, Papa and Caleb and I were cleaning out the horse stalls and putting down new bedding. Papa stopped suddenly and leaned on his pitchfork. “Sarah has said she will come for a month’s time if we wish her to,” he said, his voice loud in the dark barn. “To see how it is. Just to see.” Caleb stood by the stall door and folded his arms across his chest. “I think,” he began. Then, “I think,” he said slowly, “that it would be good-to say yes,” he finished in a rush. Papa looked at me. “I say yes,” I told him, grinning. “Yes,” said Papa. “Then yes it is.” And the three of us, all smiling, went to work again. The next day Papa went to town to mail his letter to Sarah. It was rainy for days, and the clouds followed. The house was cool and damp and quiet. Once I set four places at the table, then caught myself and put the extra plate away. Three lambs were born, one with a black face. And then Papa’s letter came. It was very short. Dear Jacob, I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall. Sarah “What’s that?” asked Caleb excitedly, peering over Papa’s shoulder. He pointed. “There, written at the bottom of the letter.” Papa read it to himself. Then he smiled, holding up the letter for us to see. Tell them I sing was all it said. 3 Sarah came in the spring. She came through green grass fields that bloomed with Indian paint-brush, red and orange, and blue-eyed grass. Papa got up early for the long day’s trip to the train and back. He brushed his hair so slick and shiny that Caleb laughed. He wore a clean blue shirt, and a belt instead of suspenders. He fed and watered the horses, talking to them as he hitched them up to the wagon. Old Bess, calm and kind; Jack, wild-eyed, reaching over to nip Bess on the neck. “Clear day, Bess,” said Papa, rubbing her nose. “Settle down, Jack.” He leaned his head on Jack. And then Papa drove off along the dirt road to fetch Sarah. Papa’s new wife. Maybe. Maybe our new mother. Gophers ran back and forth across the road, stopping to stand up and watch the wagon. Far off in the field a woodchuck ate and listened. Ate and listened. Caleb and I did our chores without talking. We shoveled out the stalls and laid down new hay. We fed the sheep. We swept and straightened and carried wood and water. And then our chores were done. Caleb pulled on my shirt. “Is my face clean!” he asked. “Can my face be too clean?” He looked alarmed. “No, your face is clean but not too clean,” I said. Caleb slipped his hand into mine as we stood on the porch, watching the road. He was afraid. “Will she be nice?” he asked. “Like Maggie?” “Sarah will be nice,” I told him. “How far away is Maine?” he asked. “You know how far. Far away, by the sea.” “Will Sarah bring some sea?” he asked. “No, you cannot bring the sea.” The sheep ran in the field, and far off the cows moved slowly to the pond, like turtles. “Will she like us?” asked Caleb very softly. I watched a marsh hawk wheel down behind the barn. He looked up at me. “Of course she will like us.” He answered his own question. “We are nice,” he added, making me smile. We waited and watched. I rocked on the porch and Caleb rolled a marble on the wood floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. The marble was blue. We saw the dust from the wagon first, rising above the road, above the heads of Jack and Old Bess. Caleb climbed up onto the porch roof and shaded his eyes. “A bonnet! ” he cried. “I see a yellow bonnet! ” The dogs came out from under the porch, ears up, their eyes on the cloud of dust bringing Sarah. The wagon passed the fenced field, and the cows and sheep looked up, too. It rounded the windmill and the barn and the windbreak of Russian olive that Mama had planted long ago. Nick began to bark, then Lottie, and the wagon clattered into the yard and stopped by the steps. “Hush,” said Papa to the dogs. And it was quiet. Sarah stepped down from the wagon, a cloth bag in her hand. She reached up and took off her yellow bonnet, smoothing back her brown hair into a bun. She was plain and tall. “Did you bring some sea?” cried Caleb beside me. “Something from the sea,” said Sarah, smiling. “And me.” She turned and lifted a black case from the wagon. “And Seal, too.” Carefully she opened the case, and Seal, gray with white feet, stepped out. Lottie lay down, her head on her paws, staring. Nick leaned down to sniff. Then he lay down, too. “The cat will be good in the barn,” said Papa. “For mice.” Sarah smiled. “She will be good in the house, too.” Sarah took Caleb’s hand, then mine. Her hands were large and rough. She gave Caleb a shell— a moon snail, she called it— that was curled and smelled of salt. “The gulls fly high and drop the shells on the rocks below,” she told Caleb. “When the shell is broken, they eat what is inside.” “That is very smart,” said Caleb. “For you, Anna,” said Sarah, “a sea stone.” And she gave me the smoothest and whitest stone I had ever seen. “The sea washes over and over and around the stone, rolling it until it is round and perfect.” “That is very smart, too,” said Caleb. He looked up at Sarah. “We do not have the sea here.” Sarah turned and looked out over the plains. “No,” she said. “There is no sea here. But the land rolls a little like the sea.” My father did not see her look, but I did. And I knew that Caleb had seen it, too. Sarah was not smiling. Sarah was already lonely. In a month’s time the preacher might come to marry Sarah and Papa. And a month was a long time. Time enough for her to change her mind and leave us. Papa took Sarah’s bags inside, where her room was ready with a quilt on the bed and blue flax dried in a vase on the night table. Seal stretched and made a small cat sound. I watched her circle the dogs and sniff the air. Caleb came out and stood beside me. “When will we sing'” he whispered. I shook my head, turning the white stone over and over in my hand. I wished everything was as perfect as the stone. I wished that Papa and Caleb and I were perfect for Sarah. I wished we had a sea of our own. 4 The dogs loved Sarah first. Lottie slept beside her bed, curled in a soft circle, and Nick leaned his face on the covers in the morning, watching for the first sign that Sarah was awake. No one knew where Seal slept. Seal was a roamer. Sarah’s collection of shells sat on the windowsill. “A scallop,” she told us, picking up the shells one by one, “a sea clam, an oyster, a razor clam. And a conch shell. If you put it to your ear you can heat the sea.” She put it to Caleb’s ear, then mine. Papa listened, too. Then Sarah listened once more, with a look so sad and far away that Caleb leaned against me. “At least Sarah can hear the sea,” he whispered. Papa was quiet and shy with Sarah, and so was I. But Caleb talked to Sarah from morning until the light left the sky. “Where are you going?” he asked. “To do what? ” “To pick flowers,” said Sarah. “I’ll hang some of them upside down and dry them so they’ll keep some color. And we can have flowers all winter long.” “I’ll come, too!” cried Caleb. “Sarah said winter,” he said to me. “That means Sarah will stay.” Together we picked flowers, paintbrush and clover and prairie violets. There were buds on the wild roses that climbed up the paddock fence. “The roses will bloom in early summer,” I told Sarah. I looked to see if she knew what I was thinking. Summer was when the wedding would be. Might be. Sarah and Papa’s wedding. We hung the flowers from the ceiling in little bunches. “I’ve never seen this before,” said Sarah. “What is it called?” “Bride’s bonnet,” I told her. Caleb smiled at the name. “We don’t have this by the sea,” she said. “We have seaside goldenrod and wild asters and woolly ragwort.” “Woolly ragwort! ” Caleb whooped. He made up a song. “Woolly ragwort all around, Woolly ragwort on the ground. Woolly ragwort grows and grows, Woolly ragwort in your nose.” Sarah and Papa laughed, and the dogs lifted their heads and thumped their tails against the wood floor. Seal sat on a kitchen chair and watched us with yellow eyes. We ate Sarah’s stew, the late light coming through the windows. Papa had baked bread that was still warm from the fire. “The stew is fine,” said Papa. “Ayuh.” Sarah nodded. “The bread, too.” “What does ‘ayuh’ mean?” asked Caleb. “In Maine it means yes,” said Sarah. “Do you want more stew!” “Ayuh,” said Caleb. “Ayuh,” echoed my father. After dinner Sarah told us about William. “He has a gray- and-white boat named Kittiwake.” She looked out the window. “That is a small gull found way off the shore where William fishes. There are three aunts who live near us. They wear silk dresses and no shoes. You would love them.” “Ayuh,” said Caleb. “Does your brother look like you?” I asked. “Yes,” said Sarah. “He is plain and tall.” At dusk Sarah cut Caleb’s hair on the front steps, gathering his curls and scattering them on the fence and ground. Seal batted some hair around the porch as the dogs watched. “Why?” asked Caleb. “For the birds,” said Sarah. “They will use it for their nests. Later we can look for nests of curls.” “Sarah said ‘later,’ ” Caleb whispered to me as we spread his hair about. “Sarah will stay.” Sarah cut Papa’s hair, too. No one else saw, but I found him behind the barn, tossing the pieces of hair into the wind for the birds. Sarah brushed my hair and tied it up in back with a rose velvet ribbon she had brought from Maine. She brushed hers long and free and tied it back, too, and we stood side by side looking into the mirror. I looked taller, like Sarah, and fair and thin. And with my hair pulled back I looked a little like her daughter. Sarah’s daughter. And then it was time for singing. Sarah sang us a song we had never heard before as we sat on the porch, insects buzzing in the dark, the rustle of cows in the grasses. It was called “Sumer Is Icumen in,” and she taught it to us all, even Papa, who sang as if he had never stopped singing. “ Sumer is icumen in Lhude sing cuccu! ” “What is sumer?” asked Caleb. He said it “soomer,” the way Sarah had said it. “Summer,” said Papa and Sarah at the same time. Caleb and I looked at each other. Summer was coming. “Tomorrow,” said Sarah, “I want to see the sheep. You know, I’ve never touched one.” “Never?” Caleb sat up. “Never,” said Sarah. She smiled and leaned back in her chair. “But I’ve touched seals. Real seals. They are cool and slippery and they slide through the water like fish. They can cry and sing. And sometimes they bark, a little like dogs.” Sarah barked like a seal. And Lottie and Nick came running from the barn to jump up on Sarah and lick her face and make her laugh. Sarah stroked them and scratched their ears and it was quiet again. “I wish I could touch a seal right now,” said Caleb, his voice soft in the night. “So do I,” said Sarah. She sighed, then she began to sing the summer song again. Far off in a field, a meadowlark sang, too. 5 The sheep made Sarah smile. She sank her fingers into their thick, coarse wool. She talked to them, running with the lambs, letting them suck on her fingers. She named them after her favorite aunts, Harriet and Mattie and Lou. She lay down in the field beside them and sang “Sumer Is Icumen in,” her voice drifting over the meadow grasses, carried by the wind. She cried when we found a lamb that had died, and she shouted and shook her fist at the turkey buzzards that came from nowhere to eat it. She would not let Caleb or me come near. And that night, Papa went with a shovel to bury the sheep and a lantern to bring Sarah back. She sat on the porch alone. Nick crept up to lean against her knees. After dinner, Sarah drew pictures to send home to Maine. She began a charcoal drawing of the fields, rolling like the sea rolled. She drew a sheep whose ears were too big. And she drew a windmill. “Windmill was my first word,” said Caleb. “Papa told me so.” “Mine was flower,” I said. “What was yours, Sarah?” “Dune,” said Sarah. “Dune?” Caleb looked up. “In Maine,” said Sarah, “there are rock cliffs that rise up at the edge of the sea. And there are hills covered with pine and spruce trees, green with needles. But William and I found a sand dune all our own. It was soft and sparkling with bits of mica, and when we were little we would slide down the dune into the water.” Caleb looked out the window. “We have no dunes here,” he said. Papa stood up. “Yes we do,” he said. He took the lantern and went out the door to the barn. “We do!” Caleb called after him. He ran ahead, Sarah and I following, the dogs close behind. Next to the barn was Papa’s mound of hay for bedding, nearly half as tall as the barn, covered with canvas to keep the rain from rotting it. Papa carried the wooden ladder from the barn and leaned it against the hay. “There.” He smiled at Sarah. “Our dune.” Sarah was very quiet. The dogs looked up at her, waiting. Sell brushed against her legs, her tail in the air. Caleb reached over and took her hand. “It looks high up,” he said. “Are you scared, Sarah!” “Scared? Scared?” exclaimed Sarah. “You bet I’m not scared.” She climbed the ladder, and Nick began to bark. She climbed to the very top of the hay and sat, looking down at us. Above, the stars were coming out. Papa piled a bed of loose hay below with his pitchfork. The light of the lantern made his eyes shine when he smiled up at Sarah. “Fine?” called Papa. “Fine,” said Sarah. She lifted her arms over her head and slid down, down, into the soft hay. She lay, laughing, as the dogs rolled beside her. “Was it a good dune?” called Caleb. “Yes,” said Sarah. “It is a fine dune.” Caleb and I climbed up and slid down. And Sarah did it three more times. At last Papa slid down, too, as the sky grew darker and the stars blinked like fireflies. We were covered with hay and dust, and we sneezed. In the kitchen, Caleb and I washed in the big wooden tub and Sarah drew more pictures to send to William. One was of Papa, his hair curly and full of hay. She drew Caleb, sliding down the hay, his arms like Sarah’s over his head. And she drew a picture of me in the tub, my hair long and straight and wet. She looked at her drawing of the fields for a long time. “Something is missing,” she told Caleb. “Something.” And she put it away. ‘”Dear William,’ ” Sarah read to us by lantern light that night. ” ‘Sliding down our dune of hay is almost as fine as sliding down the sand dunes into the sea.’ ” Caleb smiled at me across the table. He said nothing, but his mouth formed the words I had heard, too. Our dune. 6 The days grew longer. The cows moved close to the pond, where the water was cool and there were trees. Papa taught Sarah how to plow the fields, guiding the plow behind Jack and Old Bess, the reins around her neck. When the chores were done we sat in the meadow with the sheep, Sarah beside us, watching Papa finish. “Tell me about winter,” said Sarah. Old Bess nodded her head as she walked, but we could hear Papa speak sharply to Jack. “Jack doesn’t like work,” said Caleb. “He wants to be here in the sweet grass with us.” “I don’t blame him,” said Sarah. She lay back in the grass with her arms under her head. “Tell me about winter,” she said again. “Winter is cold here,” said Caleb, and Sarah and I laughed. “Winter is cold everywhere,” I said. “We go to school in winter,” said Caleb. “Sums and writing and books,” he sang. “I am good at sums and writing,” said Sarah. “I love books. How do you get to school?” “Papa drives us in the wagon. Or we walk the three miles when there is not too much snow.” Sarah sat up. “Do you have lots of snow?” “Lots and lots and lots of snow,” chanted Caleb, rolling around in the grass. “Sometimes we have to dig our way out to feed the animals.” “In Maine the barns are attached to the houses sometimes,” said Sarah. Caleb grinned. “So you could have a cow to Sunday supper?” Sarah and I laughed. “When there are bad storms, Papa ties a rope from the house to the barn so no one will get lost,” said Caleb. I frowned. I loved winter. “There is ice on the windows on winter mornings,” I told Sarah. “We can draw sparkling pictures and we can see our breath in the air. Papa builds a warm fire, and we bake hot biscuits and put on hundreds of sweaters. And if the snow is too high, we stay home from school and make snow people.” Sarah lay back in the all grasses again, her face nearly hidden. “And is there wind?” she asked. “Do you like wind?” asked Caleb. “There is wind by the sea,” said Sarah. “There is wind here,” said Caleb happily. “It blows the snow and brings tumbleweeds and makes the sheep run. Wind and wind and wind! ” Caleb stood up and ran like the wind, and the sheep an after him. Sarah and I watched him jump over rock and gullies, the sheep behind him, stiff legged and fast. He circled the field, the sun making the top of his hair golden. He collapsed next to Sarah, and the lambs pushed their wet noses into us. “Hello, Lou,” said Sarah, smiling. “Hello, Mattie.” The sun rose higher, and Papa stopped to take off his hat and wipe his face with his sleeve. “I’m hot,” said Sarah. “I can’t wait for winter wind. Let’s swim.” “Swim where?” I asked her. “I can’t swim,” said Caleb. “Can’t swim!” exclaimed Sarah. “I’ll teach you in the cow pond.” “That’s for cows!” I cried. But Sarah had grabbed our hands and we were running through the fields, ducking under the fence to the far pond. “Shoe, cows,” said Sarah as the cows looked up, startled. She took off her dress and waded into the water in her petticoat. She dived suddenly and disappeared for a moment as Caleb and I watched. She came up, laughing, her hair streaming free. Water beads sat on her shoulders. She tried to teach us how to float. I sank like a bucket filled with water and came up sputtering. But Caleb lay on his back and learned how to blow streams of water high in the air like a whale. The cows stood on the banks of the pond and stared and stopped their chewing. Water bugs circled us. “Is this like the sea?” asked Caleb. Sarah treaded water. “The sea is salt,” said Sarah. “It stretches out as far as you can see. It gleams like the sun on glass. There are waves.” “Like this?” asked Caleb, and he pushed a wave at Sarah, making her cough and laugh. “Yes,” she said. “Like that.” I held my breath and floated at last, looking up into the sky, afraid to speak. Crows flew over, three in a row. And I could hear a killdeer in the field. We climbed the bank and dried ourselves and lay in the grass again. The cows watched, their eyes sad in their dinner-plate faces. And I slept, dreaming a perfect dream. The fields had turned to a sea that gleamed like sun on glass. And Sarah was happy. 7 The dandelions in the fields had gone by, their heads soft as feathers. The summer roses were opening. Our neighbors, Matthew and Maggie, came to help Papa plow up a new field for corn. Sarah stood with us on the porch, watching their wagon wind up the road, two horses pulling it and one tied in back. I remembered the last time we had stood here alone, Caleb and I, waiting for Sarah. Sarah’s hair was in thick braids that circled her head, wild daisies tucked here and there. Papa had picked them for her. Old Bess and Jack ran along the inside of the fence, whickering at the new horses. “Papa needs five horses for the big gang plow,” Caleb told Sarah. “Prairie grass is hard.” Matthew and Maggie came with their two children and a sackful of chickens. Maggie emptied the sack into the yard and three red banty chickens clucked and scattered. “They are for you,” she told Sarah. “For eating.” Sarah loved the chickens. She clucked back to them and fed them grain. They followed her, shuffling and scratching primly in the dirt. I knew they would not be for eating. The children were young and named Rose and Violet, after flowers. They hooted and laughed and chased the chickens, who flew up to the porch roof, then the dogs, who crept quietly under the porch. Seal had long ago fled to the barn to sleep in cool hay. Sarah and Maggie helped hitch the horses to the plow, then they set up a big table in the shade of the barn, covering it with a quilt and a kettle of flowers in the middle. They sat on the porch while Caleb and Matthew and Papa began their morning of plowing. I mixed biscuit dough just inside the door, watching. “You are lonely, yes?” asked Maggie in her soft voice. Sarah’s eyes filled with tears. Slowly I stirred the dough. Maggie reached over and took Sarah’s hand. “I miss the hills of Tennessee sometimes,” she said. Do not miss the hills, Maggie, I thought. “I miss the sea,” said Sarah. Do not miss the hills. Do not miss the sea. I stirred and stirred the dough. “I miss my brother William,” said Sarah. “But he is married. The house is hers now. Not mine any longer. There are three old aunts who all squawk together like crows at dawn. I miss them, too.” “There are always things to miss,” said Maggie. “No matter where you are.” I looked out and saw Papa and Matthew and Caleb working. Rose and Violet ran in the fields. I felt something brush my legs and looked down at Nick, wagging his tail. “I would miss you, Nick,” I whispered. “I would.” I knelt down and scratched his ears. “I miss Mama.” “I nearly forgot,” said Maggie on the porch. “I have something more for you.” I carried the bowl outside and watched Maggie lift a low wooden box out of the wagon. “Plants,” she said to Sarah. “For your garden.” “My garden?” Sarah bent down to touch the plants. “Zinnias and marigolds and wild feverfew,” said Maggie. “You must have a garden. Wherever you are. Sarah smiled. “I had a garden in Maine with dahlias and columbine. And nasturtiums the color of the sun when it sets. I don’t know if nasturtiums would grow here.” “Try,” said Maggie. “You must have a garden.” We planted the flowers by the porch, turning over the soil and patting it around them, and watering. Lottie and Nick came to sniff, and the chickens walked in the dirt, leaving prints. In the fields, the horses pulled the plow up and down under the hot summer sun. Maggie wiped her face, leaving a streak of dirt. “Soon you can drive your wagon over to my house and I will give you more. I have tansy.” Sarah frowned. “I have never driven a wagon.” “I can teach you,” said Maggie. “And so can Anna and Caleb. And Jacob.” Sarah turned to me. “Can you?” she asked. “Can you drive a wagon? ” I nodded. “And Caleb?” “Yes.” “In Maine,” said Sarah, “I would walk to town.” “Here it is different,” said Maggie. “Here you will drive.” Way off in the sky, clouds gathered. Matthew and Papa and Caleb came in from the fields, their work done. We all ate in the shade. “We are glad you are here,” said Matthew to Sarah. “A new friend. Maggie misses her friends sometimes.” Sarah nodded. “There is always something to miss, no matter where you are,” she said, smiling at Maggie. Rose and Violet fell asleep in the grass, their bellies full of meat and greens and biscuits. And when it was time to go, Papa and Matthew lifted them into the wagon to sleep on blankets. Sarah walked slowly behind the wagon for a long time, waving, watching it disappear. Caleb and I ran to bring her back, the chickens running wildly behind us. “What shall we name them?” asked Sarah, laughing as the chickens followed us into the house. I smiled. I was right. The chickens would not be for eating. And then Papa came, just before the rain, bringing Sarah the first roses of summer. 8 The rain came and passed, but strange clouds hung in the northwest, low and black and green. And the air grew still. In the morning, Sarah dressed in a pair of over-alls and went to the barn to have an argument with Papa. She took apples for Old Bess and Jack. “Women don’t wear overalls,” said Caleb, running along behind her like one of Sarah’s chickens. “This woman does,” said Sarah crisply. Papa stood by the fence. “I want to learn how to ride a horse,” Sarah told him. “And then I want to learn how to drive the wagon. By myself.” Jack leaned over and nipped at Sarah’s over- alls. She fed him an apple. Caleb and I stood behind Sarah. “I can ride a horse, I know,” said Sarah. “I rode once when I was twelve. I will ride Jack.” Jack was Sarah’s favorite. Papa shook his head. “Not Jack,” he said. “Jack is sly.” “I am sly, too,” said Sarah stubbornly. Papa smiled. “Ayuh,” he said, nodding. “But not Jack.” “Yes, Jack!” Sarah’s voice was very loud. “I can teach you how to drive a wagon. I have already taught you how to plow.” “And then I can go to town. By myself.” “Say no, Papa,” Caleb whispered beside me. “That’s a fair thing, Sarah,” said Papa. “We’ll practice.” A soft rumble of thunder sounded. Papa looked up at the clouds. “Today’ Can we begin today”‘ asked Sarah. “Tomorrow is best,” said Papa, looking worried. “I have to fix the house roof. A portion of it is loose. And there’s a storm coming.” “We,” said Sarah. “What?” Papa turned. “We will fix the roof,” said Sarah. “I’ve done it before. I know about roofs. I am a good carpenter. Remember, I told you?” There was thunder again, and Papa went to get the ladder. “Are you fast?” he asked Sarah. “I am fast and I am good,” said Sarah. And they climbed the ladder to the roof, Sarah with wisps of hair around her face, her mouth full of nails, overalls like Papa’s. Overalls that were Papa’s. Caleb and I went inside to close the windows. We could hear the steady sound of hammers pounding the roof overhead. “Why does she want to go to town by herself” asked Caleb. “To leave us!” I shook my head, weary with Caleb’s questions. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. But there was no time to cry, for suddenly Papa called out. “Caleb! Anna!” We ran outside and saw a huge cloud, horribly black, moving toward us over the north fields. Papa slid down the roof, helping Sarah after him. “A squall!” he yelled to us. He held up his arms and Sarah jumped off the porch roof. “Get the horses inside,” he ordered Caleb. “Get the sheep, Anna. And the cows. The barn is safest.” The grasses flattened. There was a hiss of wind, a sudden pungent smell. Our faces looked yellow in the strange light. Caleb and I jumped over the fence and found the animals huddled by the barn. I counted the sheep to make sure they were all there, and herded them into a large stall. A few raindrops came, gentle at first, then stronger and louder, so that Caleb and I covered our ears and stared at each other without speaking. Caleb looked frightened and I tried to smile at him. Sarah carried a sack into the barn, her hair wet and streaming down her neck, Papa came behind, Lottie and Nick with him, their ears hard against their heads. “Wait!” cried Sarah. “My chickens!” “No, Sarah!” Papa called after her. But Sarah had already run from the barn into a sheet of rain. My father followed her. The sheep nosed open their stall door and milled around the barn, bleating. Nick crept under my arm, and a lamb, Mattie with the black face, stood close to me, trembling. There was a soft paw on my lap, then a gray body. Seal. And then, as the thunder pounded and the wind rose and there was the terrible crackling of lightning close by, Sarah and Papa stood in the barn doorway, wet to the skin. Papa carried Sarah’s chickens. Sarah came with an armful of summer roses. Sarah’s chickens were not afraid, and they settled like small red bundles in the hay. Papa closed the door at last, shutting out some of the sounds of the storm. The barn was eerie and half lighted, like dusk without a lantern. Papa spread blankets around our shoulders and Sarah unpacked a bag of cheese and bread and jam. At the very bottom of the bag were Sarah’s shells. Caleb got up and went over to the small barn window. “What color is the sea when it storms?” he asked Sarah. “Blue,” said Sarah, brushing her wet hair back with her fingers. “And gray and green.” Caleb nodded and smiled. “Look,” he said to her. “Look what is missing from your drawing.” Sarah went to stand between Caleb and Papa by the window. She looked a long time without speaking. Finally, she touched Papa’s shoulder. “We have squalls in Maine, too,” she said. “Just like this. It will be all right, Jacob.” Papa said nothing. But he put his arm around her, and leaned over to rest his chin in her hair. I closed my eyes, suddenly remembering Mama and Papa standing that way, Mama smaller than Sarah, her hair fair against Papa’s shoulder. When I opened my eyes again, it was Sarah standing there. Caleb looked at me and smiled and smiled until he could smile no more. 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 into 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. 9 It was very quiet. The dogs leaned down to eat the hailstones. Seal stepped around them and leaped up on the fence to groom herself. A tree had blown over near the cow pond. And the wild roses were scattered on the ground, as if a wedding had come and gone there. “I’m glad I saved an armful” was all that Sarah said. Only one field was badly damaged, and Sarah and Papa hitched up the horses and plowed and replanted during the next two days. The roof had held. “I told you T know about roofs,” Sarah told Papa, making him smile. Papa kept his promise to Sarah. When the work was done, he took her out into the fields, Papa riding Jack who was sly, and Sarah riding Old Bess. Sarah was quick to learn. “Too quick,” Caleb complained to me as we watched from the fence. He thought a moment. “Maybe she’ll fall off and have to stay here. Why'” he asked, turning to me. “Why does she have to go away alone?” “Hush up, Caleb,” I said crossly. “Hush up.” “I could get sick and make her stay here,” said Caleb . “No.” “We could tie her up.” “No.” And Caleb began to cry, and I took him inside the barn where we could both cry. Papa and Sarah came to hitch the horses to the wagon, so Sarah could practice driving. Papa didn’t see Caleb’s tears, and he sent him with an ax to begin chopping up the tree by the pond for firewood. I stood and watched Sarah, the reins in her hands, Papa next to her in the wagon. I could see Caleb standing by the pond, one hand shading his eyes, watching, too. I went into the safe darkness of the barn then, Sarah’s chickens scuttling along behind me. “Why?” I asked out loud, echoing Caleb’s question. The chickens watched me, their eyes small and bright. The next morning Sarah got up early and put on her blue dress. She took apples to the barn. She loaded a bundle of hay on the wagon for Old Bess and Jack. She put on her yellow bonnet. “Remember Jack,” said Papa. “A strong hand.” “Yes, Jacob.” “Best to be home before dark,” said Papa. “Driving a wagon is hard if there’s no full moon.” “Yes, Jacob.” Sarah kissed us all, even my father, who looked surprised. “Take care of Seal,” she said to Caleb and me. And with a whisper to Old Bess and a stern word to Jack, Sarah climbed up in the wagon and drove away. “Very good,” murmured Papa as he watched. And after a while he turned and went out into the fields. Caleb and I watched Sarah from the porch. Caleb took my hand, and the dogs lay down beside us. It was sunny, and I remembered another time when a wagon had taken Mama away. It had been a day just like this day. And Mama had never come back. Seal jumped up to the porch, her feet making a small thump. Caleb leaned down and picked her up and walked inside. I took the broom and slowly swept the porch. Then I watered Sarah’s plants. Caleb cleaned out the wood stove and carried the ashes to the barn, spilling them so that I had to sweep the porch again. “I am loud and pesky,” Caleb cried suddenly. “You said so! And she has gone to buy a train ticket to go away!” “No, Caleb. She would tell us.” “The house is too small,” said Caleb. “That’s what it is.” “The house is not too small,” I said. I looked at Sarah’s drawing of the fields pinned up on the wall next to the window. “What is missing?” I asked Caleb. “You said you knew what was missing.” “Colors,” said Caleb wearily. “The colors of the sea.” Outside, clouds moved into the sky and went away again. We took lunch to Papa, cheese and bread and lemonade. Caleb nudged me. “Ask him. Ask Papa.” “What has Sarah gone to do?” I asked. “I don’t know,” said Papa. He squinted at me. Then he sighed and put one hand on Caleb’s head, one on mine. “Sarah is Sarah. She does things her way, you know.” “I know,” said Caleb very softly. Papa picked up his shovel and put on his hat. “Ask if she’s coming back,” whispered Caleb. “Of course she’s coming back,” I said. “Seal is here.” But I would not ask the question. I was afraid to hear the answer. We fed the sheep, and I set the table for dinner. Four plates. The sun dropped low over the west fields. Lottie and Nick stood at the door, wagging their tails, asking for supper. Papa came to light the stove. And then it was dusk. Soon it would be dark. Caleb sat on the porch steps, turning his moon snail shell over and over in his hand. Seal brushed back and forth against him. Suddenly Lottie began to bark, and Nick jumped off the porch and ran down the road. “Dust!” cried Caleb. He climbed the porch and stood on the roof. “Dust, and a yellow bonnet! ” Slowly the wagon came around the windmill and the barn and the windbreak and into the yard, the dogs jumping happily beside it. “Hush, dogs,” said Sarah. And Nick leaped up into the wagon to sit by Sarah. Papa took the reins and Sarah climbed down from the wagon. Caleb burst into tears. “Seal was very worried! ” he cried. Sarah put her arms around him, and he wailed into her dress. “And the house is too small, we thought! And I am loud and pesky!” Sarah looked at Papa and me over Caleb’s head. “We thought you might be thinking of leaving us,” I told her. “Because you miss the sea.” Sarah smiled. “No,” she said. “I will always miss my old home, but the truth of it is I would miss you more.” Papa smiled at Sarah, then he bent quickly to unhitch the horses from the wagon. He led them to the barn for water. Sarah handed me a package. “For Anna,” she said. “And Caleb. For all of us.” The package was small, wrapped in brown paper with a rubber band around it. Very carefully I unwrapped it, Caleb peering closely. Inside were three colored pencils. “Blue,” said Caleb slowly, “and gray. And green.” Sarah nodded. Suddenly Caleb grinned. “Papa,” he called. “Papa, come quickly! Sarah has brought the sea! ” We eat our night meal by candlelight, the four of us, Sarah has brought candles from town, And nasturtium reeds for her garden, and a book of songs to teach us. It is late, and Caleb is nearly sleeping by his plate and Sarah is smiling at my father, Soon there will be a wedding, Papa says that when the preacher asks if he will have Sarah for his wife, he will answer, “Ayuh, ” Autumn will come, then winter, cold with a wind that blows like the wind off the sea in Maine. There will be nests of curls to look for, and dried flowers all winter long. When there me storms, Papa will stretch a rope from the door to the barn so we will not be lost when we feed the sheep and the cotes and Jack and Old Bass, And Sarah’s chickens, if they aren’t living in the house. There will be Sarah’s sea, blue and gray and green, hanging on the wall. And songs, old ones and new, And Seal with yellow eyes, And there will be Sarah, plain and tall. end Patricia MacLachlan is the celebrated author of many books for readers of all ages, including SARAH PLAIN AND TALL, winner of the 1986 Newbery Medal. She says, “When I was young, my mother would lead me home from the library as I read, her hand on my neck, guiding me across streets and up and down curbs. By the time I got home, my books were all finished, and it was time to return to the library for more.” Mrs. MacLachlan has always had a keen interest in families and children, so it naturally followed that this interest, coupled with her commitment to children’s literature, “provided the basis for my decision to write for children-something I had always wanted to do.” Her first book, THE SICK DAY, was published in 1979. “There is a joy … in creating surprising insight into a character. The characters in my books become, for me, good friends, extended family members, or the brothers and sisters I never had. Books affect lives, especially children’s lives, because children have a genuine belief in the truth of stories, the ultimate gift for the writer. It’s a shared gift — from writer to reader and back again.” Patricia MacLachlan lives in western Massachusetts and continues to write. Her other titles include ARTHUR, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME; UNCLAIMED TREASURES; and FACTS AND FICTION OF MINNA PRATT, all chosen as ALA Notable Children’s Books; CASSIE BINEGAR; SEVEN KISSES IN A ROW; and, most recently, SKYLARK, the companion to SARAH PLAIN AND TALL. Both SKYLARK and SARAH PLAIN AND TALL have been Hallmark Hall of Fame television specials starring Glenn Close.
[PDF] Sarah, Plain And Tall By Patricia MacLachlan
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Winner of the Newbery Medal
“Did Mama sing every day?” asked Caleb. “Every single day?” He sat close to the fire, his chin in his hand. It was dusk, and the dogs lay beside him on the warm hearthstones.
“Every single day,” I told him for the second time this week. For the twentieth time this month. The hundredth time this year! And the past few years?
“And did Papa sing, too!” “Yes. Papa sang, too. Don’t get so close, Caleb. You’ll heat up.”
He pushed his chair back. It made a hollow scraping sound on the hearthstones, and the dogs stirred. Lottie, small and black.
Wagged her tail and lifted her head. Nick slept on. I turned the bread dough over and over on the marble slab on the kitchen table.
“Well. Papa doesn’t sing anymore,” said Caleb very softly. 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 a round pale ball.
“I had hair,” said Caleb seriously. “Not enough to talk about,” I said. “And she named me Caleb,” he went on, filling in the old familiar story. “I would have named you Troublesome,” I said, making Caleb smile.
“And Mama handed me to you in the yellow blanket and said “He waited for me to finish the story. “And said…?” I sighed. “And Mama said, “Isn’t he beautiful, Anna “And I was,” Caleb finished.
Caleb thought the story was over, and I didn’t tell him what I had really thought. He was homely and plain, and he had a terrible holler and a horrid smell.
But these were not the worst of him. Mama died the next morning. That was the worst thing about Caleb.
“Isn’t he beautiful, Anna!” Her last words to me. I had gone to bed thinking how wretched he looked. And I forgot to say good night.
Author Patricia MacLachlan Language English Pages 29 PDF Size 107.5 KB Category Fiction & Novel
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Read our review and summary of Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachian and download Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF ebook free at the end.
Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF Review:
If you are looking for a book for your children then go ahead and download this book. “Sarah, Plain and Tall” is going to meet all your requirements for yo9ur children as well. The main theme and the idea of the book are so different that it has won many of the big awards as well. Which makes this book very much interesting and amazing book and also makes it worthful for reading as well. The main idea and the main theme of the book are about the loneliness and about the abandonment. After being very much popular and famous, The writer of the book decided to write the next parts of the book as well. And there are many parts of the book available for your children.
The story of the book deals with the Jacob Witting. He is basically a farmer. which is spending his time in a very deep sorrow, and this sadness is due to the death of his wife. Actually, his wife died during the birth of his baby. He is now living his life with his two children and the farm. And now he has to take care of all the things all alone.
About Author Patricia MacLachian:
The writer of “Sarah, Plain and Tall” is an American writer. Patricia “Patty” MacLachlan is a very well known children writer. Not just this but she is also a member of the ” National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance” which makes her very much iomportannt in order of the children’s writings as well.
Features of Sarah, Plain and Tall PDF
English is the original language of this book.
The United States is the original publication place of this book.
There are 58 pages of this book.
The original publication year of the book is 1985.
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Sarah, Plain and Tall
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1 Scholastic BookFiles A READING GUIDE TO Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan Danielle Denega
2 Copyright 2004 by Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC REFERENCE, SCHOLASTIC BOOKFILES, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scholastic BookFiles: A Reading Guide to Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan/Danielle Denega. p. cm. Summary: Discusses the writing, characters, plot, and themes of this 1986 Newbery Award winning book. Includes discussion questions and activities. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). 1. MacLachlan, Patricia. Sarah, Plain and Tall Juvenile literature. 2. Frontier and pioneer life in literature Juvenile literature. [1. MacLachlan, Patricia. Sarah, Plain and Tall. 2. American literature History and criticism.] I. Title. II. Series. PS3563.A3178S dc Composition by Brad Walrod/High Text Graphics, Inc. Cover and interior design by Red Herring Design Printed in the U.S.A. 23 First printing, March 2004
3 Contents About Patricia MacLachlan 5 How Sarah, Plain and Tall Came About 9 Chapter Charter: Questions to Guide Your Reading 11 Plot: What s Happening? 15 Setting/Place and Time: Where in the World Are We? 20 Themes/Layers of Meaning: Is That What It Really Means? 27 Characters: Who Are These People, Anyway? 33 Opinion: What Have Other People Thought About Sarah, Plain and Tall? 42 Glossary 47 Patricia MacLachlan on Writing 49 You Be the Author! 53 Activities 55 Related Reading 60 Bibliography 62 3
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5 About Patricia MacLachlan There is no better model than a good book. Patricia MacLachlan When Patricia MacLachlan talks about her career as a writer, she says that she always knew she wanted to write. But when she was young she thought that it was a job that she couldn t do. MacLachlan explains, First, let me say that as a child I made a conscious decision not to be a writer because I thought writers had all the answers. MacLachlan eventually came to understand that people write to help find answers to their questions and to help them understand life better. As an adult she finally got up the courage to try it. Although she had a late start, she went on to become an award-winning author. Patricia Pritzkau (MacLachlan) was born on March 3, 1938, in Cheyenne,Wyoming, and was raised in Minnesota. Both states are in the western part of the United States. MacLachlan says that even though she moved east as an adult, she never let go of the bond she formed with her roots: I have an amazingly close connection to the prairie. Each time I return I feel like I am home. It was this relationship with the West that helped her create the vivid setting in Sarah, Plain and Tall: Sarah came in 5
6 the spring. She came through green grass fields that bloomed with Indian paintbrush, red and orange, and blue-eyed grass… Gophers ran back and forth across the road, stopping to stand up and watch the wagon. Far off in the field a woodchuck ate and listened. Ate and listened. MacLachlan has no brothers or sisters, but did have a very close relationship with her parents throughout her childhood. She spent much of her time with her dad, Philo, and her mom, Madonna, so their influences molded her as a person. Her parents were both schoolteachers and brought many books into their household. They encouraged her to read a book and find out who you are, so she became an avid reader. She had an extremely active imagination and would often read a book and then act out scenes from it with her father. Patricia eventually moved to the East Coast. In 1962, she graduated from the University of Connecticut and married psychologist Robert MacLachlan. Like her parents, she became a teacher. She taught English at Bennett Junior High School in Manchester, Connecticut, from 1963 until The MacLachlans have three children: John, Jamie, and Emily. Patricia spent a great deal of time reading to her kids when they were young, just as her parents had done with her when she was a child. Her family has always been a very important part of her life. But as her kids grew older and became more independent, she began to feel a need to do something else. 6
7 At the age of thirty-five MacLachlan, in addition to teaching, was working at the Children s Aid Family Service Agency. She interviewed possible foster mothers and wrote articles about adoption and foster care. It was at this time that she realized her concern for families and children and her commitment to children s literature were what really excited her. MacLachlan decided she wanted to pursue writing for kids. She says, It dawned on me that what I really wanted to do was to write. How would I ever have the courage, I wondered. It was very scary to find myself in the role of student again, trying to learn something new. With the full support of her family, MacLachlan decided to give herself a few years to become a published author. If the time passed and she was unsuccessful, she would give up and try a different profession. But she did get published, and in only one year! Her first book, The Sick Day, was released in It is a picture book about a little girl with a cold, whose father cares for her. One of the people who believed in MacLachlan s abilities as a writer early on was an editor (a person whose job it is to help authors develop their writing skills) named Charlotte Zolotow. She said that MacLachlan s writing is good because it is filled with beautiful images, a poetic voice, and sensitive insights strung together like free verse. MacLachlan s stories are usually about families. She has said that many of them, like Sarah, Plain and Tall; The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt; and Cassie Binegar, are partly autobiographical (a story about a person s life that is written by the person herself). MacLachlan describes them this way: 7
8 My books derive chiefly from my family life, both as a child with my own parents as well as with my husband and kids. The Sick Day was followed, very quickly, by many popular and successful titles, including Sarah, Plain and Tall. Since then her books have won countless awards, including the Newbery Medal and the Christopher Award, which are two of the most distinguished awards a children s writer can receive. MacLachlan attributes her success to her family, for inspiring the themes she writes about and for being completely behind her when she chose to switch careers and become a writer. She says, They have always supported the process as well as the end results. Writers don t always have a regular paycheck coming to them, like people with other jobs, so this meant that while she was first starting out, MacLachlan s family would have only her husband s salary on which to live. He told Patricia, What you re doing is more important than money. MacLachlan feels strongly that she would not have become the successful writer she is today if her husband had not given her time and space to develop her craft. She says,… no one supported me more than my husband, Bob, who during the early single-salary years wouldn t let me stop writing for a real job. The MacLachlans now live in Massachusetts, where they spend part of the time at their house in Leeds and the rest of the time at their house on Cape Cod. Patricia continues to write, give lectures, and teach a course on children s literature at Smith College. 8
9 How Sarah, Plain and Tall Came About Writing Sarah was in a sense, like a going back home. Patricia MacLachlan In 1985, just six years after publishing her very first book, Sarah, Plain and Tall was released. The book received praise from children, parents, teachers, and literary critics alike. One critic even called Sarah, Plain and Tall a near perfect miniature novel. In 1986, Sarah, Plain and Tall won the John Newbery Medal from the American Library Association. The award is represented by the gold seal you may see on the book s cover. Every year, this honor is given to the author of the most distinguished piece of children s literature from the previous year. In her acceptance speech for the award, MacLachlan told the audience that it was her mother who inspired her to write this heartwarming story. Patricia explained that when she was a child, her mother told her about a woman she knew who had moved from the coast of Maine to the prairie. This woman became a wife and mother to some family members of Patricia s mother. Yet it wasn t until her own children were preparing to go away to college that Patricia 9
10 made the connection between the story her mother had shared with her and her own memories of life on the prairie. Before Patricia s children left for college, her parents took the MacLachlans on a trip to the prairie, where she and her parents had been born. MacLachlan spoke about this trip in her Newbery acceptance speech: It was a gift for all of us, for the children to see a land they had never seen, to know family they had never met, to stand on the vast North Dakota farm where my father had been born in a sod house. The family trip to see her birthplace brought back many memories for her and her parents. Memories were especially important for MacLachlan because her mother had developed Alzheimer s disease. Alzheimer s disease is a serious illness that causes a person to gradually lose her memory. Patricia told the Newbery audience, Sarah speaks for me and my mother, for whom there are few words left…. MacLachlan says the desire to preserve the memories of her mother, and to tell the story of their family and of the prairie itself, propelled her to write Sarah, Plain and Tall: When I began Sarah, I wished for several things and was granted something unexpected. Most of all I wished to write my mother s story with spaces, like the prairie, with silences that could say what words could not…and in the end we are all there, my mother, my father, my husband, my children, and me. 10
11 Chapter Charter: Questions to Guide Your Reading The following questions will help you think about the important parts of each chapter. Chapter 1 Why do you think Caleb asks Anna about their mother so often? When Caleb asks his father why he does not sing anymore, his father replies, I ve forgotten the old songs. Do you think there s another reason why he may not sing anymore? What might it be? In her very first letter to Jacob, Sarah tells him that she is not mild mannered. Why might she feel it is important to tell him this? Why do you think it is important to Anna that her father ask Sarah if she sings? Chapter 2 What does Sarah tell the children about Maine in her letters? Why do you think she includes these details? Why do you think Caleb reads Sarah s letter so many times? When Anna sets the table, she sets four places and then puts one away. Whom do you think the fourth setting was meant for? Why does she put it away? 11
12 Chapter 3 Why does Papa get dressed up for Sarah s arrival? Why do you think Caleb asks Anna so many questions while they are waiting for Sarah and Papa to return? Why does Sarah bring Caleb and Anna gifts from the sea? Anna says, I wished we had a sea of our own. What do you think she means? Why would she wish for this? Chapter 4 When Sarah listens to the conch shell, Anna notices that Sarah looks sad. Have you ever felt sad about missing a person or a place? Caleb keeps noticing things that Sarah says, and he tells Anna, That means Sarah will stay. Do you think Caleb wants Sarah to stay or leave? What parts of the story support your opinion? When they sing a song with Sarah, Papa sang as if he had never stopped singing. What do you think that means about the way Papa is feeling? Chapter 5 When the lamb is found dead, Sarah cries and will not let the children near it. What do you think this says about her personality? Why do you think Papa makes the hay dune for Sarah? After Papa builds the hay dune, Caleb asks Sarah if she is scared to climb it. Sarah is not scared at all. Have you ever been brave when other people were afraid? How do you think Papa feels about Sarah? 12
13 Chapter 6 Sarah asks the children about winter even though it is still spring. Why do you think she wonders about winter? How does the author describe summer and winter on the prairie, and the ocean in Maine? What types of words does she use? Can you imagine what these places might be like based on her words? After they all go for a swim in the cow pond, Anna dozes off and dreams a perfect dream? What does she dream of, and why do you think she calls it perfect? Chapter 7 How does Anna know that the chickens would not be for eating? Why is Maggie so nice to Sarah, bringing her gifts and offering to teach her to drive a wagon? Maggie says, There are always things to miss. No matter where you are. What do you think she means by this? Maggie knows that Sarah must have a garden because she loves flowers so much. Is there anything you love so much that you need to have it, wherever you are? Chapter 8 When Caleb tells Sarah, Women don t wear overalls, how does Sarah respond? What do you think this says about her? When Sarah runs out into the storm with Jacob, what things do they bring back with them? Why do you think they choose to rescue these things? Caleb points out what is missing from Sarah s drawing of the sea. What is it? 13
14 Chapter 9 Why are the children so worried about Sarah going to town alone? What does Anna remember about her mother in this chapter? Why is Caleb so relieved when Sarah returns? What does he tell Sarah when she gets back? What do you learn about Caleb s personality in this scene? What does Sarah bring with her when she returns? What are the reasons she brings these things? 14
15 Plot: What s Happening? I will always miss my old home, but the truth of it is I would miss you more. Sarah, Sarah, Plain and Tall Sarah, Plain and Tall is the story of a loving family that has experienced a great loss. Anna, the narrator, is about twelve years old. Her brother, Caleb, is several years younger. The two children live on the prairie with their father, Jacob, and their two dogs, Nick and Lottie. Anna and Caleb s mother is not present because she died as a result of giving birth to Caleb. When the book opens, Anna is rolling bread dough while Caleb watches her. It is winter on the prairie and a fire burns in the kitchen. Caleb asks Anna the same questions about his mother over and over again. He was just a day old when his mother died, so Caleb is not able to remember her at all. Anna, who is old enough to remember her mother, remembers very well how things were after her mom died: And then the days seemed long and dark like winter days, even though it wasn t winter. And Papa didn t sing. 15
16 Although she cares very much for her brother now, Anna tells the reader that she found it hard to love Caleb when he was first born. She says that he was not very pretty, smelled bad, and cried. And the worst thing about Caleb s birth was that her mother passed away the next day. Jacob, the children s father, returns home from a trip into town. The children welcome him with hugs. Caleb asks his father why he does not sing anymore. Jacob tells him, I ve forgotten the old songs. Jacob then informs the children that he has placed an advertisement in a newspaper for a wife. In the 1800s, women would sometimes answer an ad to be a mother and a wife to a family who did not have one. Jacob reads the children a letter. The letter is from Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton, a woman from Maine who is answering the ad. She tells the family a little about herself in her first letter. Anna and Caleb think it is important to find out if Sarah sings, like their mother had. Anna tells her father, Ask her if she sings. The family all write letters to Sarah in Maine, and she replies to each of them separately. She answers their questions and tells them more about Maine and her life and family there. Sarah agrees to come and stay with the family for a short time to see if she likes them and if they like her. If they all get along well, Sarah will marry Jacob and stay on the prairie. In Sarah s second letter to Jacob she says, I will come by train. I will wear 16
17 a yellow bonnet. And then at the close of her letter she writes, Tell them I sing. On the day she arrives, Caleb is very nervous and asks Anna a lot of questions: Will she be nice?… How far away is Maine?… Will Sarah bring some sea?… Will she like us? Sarah brings a gray cat named Seal with her, as well as gifts from the sea for Anna and Caleb. The children worry immediately that Sarah will be lonely so far from home. They are concerned that she will miss the ocean, as well as the brother and family she describes in her letters. Winter turns into spring and Sarah picks flowers for the house. She makes meals for the family, grooms their hair, and, most important, she sings with them. Sarah becomes fond of the animals on the farm where Caleb, Anna, and Jacob live. The family and Sarah exchange stories about the lands they know. Sarah tells Jacob and the children of the ocean and dunes along the coast of Maine:… there are rock cliffs that rise up at the edge of the sea. And there are hills covered with pine and spruce trees, green with needles. The children tell Sarah about winters on the prairie: Papa builds a warm fire, and we bake hot biscuits and put on hundreds of sweaters. And if the snow is too high, we stay home from school and make snow people. Sarah is still with the family when the summer roses start blooming. Matthew and Maggie, neighbors of Anna, Caleb, and Jacob, come to visit and to help Jacob plow a new cornfield. Maggie spends time with Sarah. The two women find that they have things in common and get along well with each other. 17
18 Maggie tells Sarah that she too misses the state where she grew up: I miss the hills of Tennessee sometimes. Sarah confesses to Maggie that she misses her brother, William, and the sea. But Maggie tells Sarah something important: There are always things to miss…no matter where you are. She helps Sarah understand that there are ways to be more comfortable in a new place, like planting a garden, getting new pets, and learning new skills. The next morning Sarah tells Jacob that she wants to learn to do the things he does around the farm: ride a horse and drive a wagon. She also wants to travel into town on her own, a wish that makes the children very nervous. Caleb asks Anna, Why does she want to go to town by herself?… To leave us? The same morning a terrible rainstorm comes and the family is forced to take shelter in the barn. Sarah runs back out into the bad weather, with Jacob following right after her, to rescue a few important things from the storm. The two return with the chickens Maggie gave to Sarah, the summer roses Jacob had given Sarah, some food, and the seashells Sarah had brought with her from Maine. As they wait for the storm to pass, Caleb notices that the stormy sky is the same colors as the ocean Sarah has described, and that these colors are missing from a drawing she has made. The day after the storm, Jacob keeps his promise to Sarah. He teaches her how to drive the wagon so that she can go to town by herself. The children watch anxiously. Why does she have to go away alone? Caleb wonders. Anna tells him to hush, but then 18
19 they both escape to the barn where they cry together without Sarah and Jacob seeing them. The next morning Jacob, Anna, and Caleb watch Sarah climb into the wagon and leave, bound for town. Anna tells the reader, It was sunny, and I remembered another time when a wagon had taken Mama away. It had been a day just like this day. And Mama had never come back. Papa spends the day quietly working in the fields while the children wait, fretting that she will not return. Just before dark, they finally spot dust rising on the road and Sarah s yellow bonnet comes into sight. Sarah returns with special gifts, including pencils the color of the sea so that she can finish her drawing. She tells Anna and Caleb that no matter how much she may miss Maine, if she were to leave, she would miss them more. Sarah will stay from now on, and soon there will be a wedding. Papa says that when the preacher asks if he will have Sarah for his wife, he will answer, Ayuh. Thinking about the plot Why does Sarah come to stay with this family? Why do the children worry that Sarah may leave them? What things does Sarah do that make the reader understand she will stay on the prairie? 19
20 Setting/Place and Time: Where in the World Are We? There were fields and grass and sky and not much else. Anna, Sarah, Plain and Tall Place The setting of a book is where and when the story takes place. Sarah, Plain and Tall takes place in a rural area on the prairie lands of the United States. The prairie is a part of the United States that includes Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, South Dakota, and North Dakota. Much of the land there is fairly flat. There are sprawling fields of grass that are perfect for farming corn and wheat. Patricia MacLachlan never tells the reader exactly what state the family lives in, but she provides a vivid picture of the land around the farm and how it changes with each season. She discusses the sky as well as the plants, trees, and animals that inhabit the area. When telling the reader about winter on the prairie, Anna first describes the sky at that time of year: Outside the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down. She says that patches of snow and ice cover the landscape and that the days sometimes seem long and dark. 20
21 When Sarah asks Caleb and Anna to describe the prairie winters to her, they tell her that it gets very cold there and that they go to school at that time of year. The children wouldn t have gone to school for as many months a year as kids today do. Caleb and Anna would have needed to stay home more often during the other seasons of the year to help out around the farm. Caleb tells Sarah that it snows a great deal in the winter. The snow gets so deep that they sometimes have to dig their way through it just to feed the farm animals. He says, When there are bad storms, Papa ties a rope from the house to the barn so no one will get lost. Caleb goes on to tell Sarah that winter winds blow the snow and make the sheep run around. MacLachlan describes spring on the prairie in great detail. In the spring the land is full of new flowers. The grassy fields bloom with Indian paintbrush, red and orange, and blue-eyed grass. Sarah arrives in the spring and she and the children pick the paintbrush, as well as clover and prairie violets. Anna notices wild rosebuds that climb up the paddock fence and even describes the Russian olive that her mother had planted. The animals are out and about around the farm during the spring. The gophers run back and forth across the road. The woodchucks eat quietly in the fields. The cows move toward the cow pond very slowly, like turtles, as MacLachlan writes. Anna can see marsh hawks fly down behind the barn and hear meadowlarks singing in the distance. 21
22 Summertime on the prairie is lovely. The days are longer, it is hot, and the animals still roam the farmland. The sheep are out grazing. The summer winds carry Sarah s songs as she lies in the meadow. The cows move very close to their pond, where there is cool water and trees to shade them from the heat. The dogs, Lottie and Nick, sniff around the children and Sarah. The chickens fuss, leaving tiny footprints in the dirt. Jacob works the horses hard as they plow the fields under the hot summer sun. The fluffy, featherlike heads of the dandelions blow by in the wind. The summer roses open, and Sarah and the children plant flowers by the porch. There is another setting that Patricia MacLachlan describes in Sarah, Plain and Tall, but it s a place where only one of the characters has ever been. It s the Maine setting that exists in Sarah s memories. The reader can imagine what it is like there based solely on Sarah s descriptions. Sarah discusses the colors of the ocean: My favorite colors are the colors of the sea, blue and gray and green, depending on the weather. She also talks about how the water in the ocean is salty and wavy. The ocean stretches out farther than the eye can see. The water gleams like the sun on glass, Sarah says. Sarah s brother has told her that when he is out on his fishing boat and it is foggy, the water is a color so unique that there is no name for it. 22
23 When Sarah first arrives, she brings things from the coast of Maine for the children. She brings Caleb a shell called a moon snail. It is curled and smells like salt from the ocean. Sarah tells Caleb that the seagulls that live on the shore fly up high and carry moon snails in their beaks. The gulls drop the shell so that it crashes on the rocks below. The shell opens. Then the birds swoop down to eat what is inside. For Anna, Sarah brings a sea stone. Sarah tells her that the stone is smooth and round because the water washes over and around it for a long time, wearing away the sharp ridges and edges. These items from Maine, and their descriptions, give the reader a better sense of what Maine looks, smells, and sounds like. When Sarah s brother goes fishing in Maine, he catches flounder, sea bass, and bluefish. He sees whales in the water and birds flying overhead. Sarah also tells the children about the seals in Maine: I ve touched seals. Real seals. They are cool and slippery and they slide through the water like fish. They can cry and sing. And sometimes they bark, a little like dogs. The house that Sarah lived in in Maine is tall. The salty air has turned the shingles gray. There are rosebushes near the house and lots of other plants and flowers, too. Sarah describes them: We have seaside goldenrod and wild asters and woolly ragwort…. I had a garden in Maine with dahlias and columbine. And nasturtiums the color of the sun when it sets. 23
24 We find out that Sarah s brother, William, has a gray-and-white boat named Kittiwake. A kittiwake is a small gull found off the shore of Maine, where William goes to fish. Sarah and William have three aunts who live near them. Sarah says, They wear silk dresses and no shoes. Time Many of the details about Sarah, Plain and Tall indicate that it takes place in the late 1800s. In the nineteenth century ( ), the prairie lands of the United States were being settled. People often made their living on farms and did not have any of the modern conveniences we have today. The family uses a horse-drawn wagon to transport them from place to place. Today, most people travel by car or bus, but this method of travel was not common in the nineteenth century. Anna cooks meals for the family over an open fire. The same fire supplies heat to the house during the cold winter months. This is because there was no electricity back then! Anna would not have had an electric or a gas stove or an oven to cook with, and the house would not have had electric heat. The family lights oil lamps to see in the dark. No electricity meant no electric lights! Jacob, Anna, and Caleb exchange handwritten letters with Sarah. The story occurs well before existed. After Sarah arrives, she cuts the family s hair for them rather than bringing them to a barber shop or hair salon, so the reader can guess that 24
25 such places were not yet common. They all sing together for entertainment rather than watch television or movies, as many people do today. Another indication that the story takes place in the nineteenth century is that Caleb s mother died giving birth to him at home. Anna tells the reader how she remembers the day her mother died. She says, They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. Medical practices were very different in this time period than they are today. Women who lived in newly settled areas, like the prairie, often gave birth at home because there weren t many doctors offices nearby. Sometimes there wasn t even a doctor, so a person called a midwife would help a woman have her baby. Today new medical equipment and well-trained doctors make childbirth much safer. In the nineteenth century these things were not available, so if a problem occurred, the mother or baby often died. MacLachlan further establishes the nineteenth-century rural setting by describing the daily activities of the family. Most of what they do involves maintaining the farm. Jacob plows the fields with a horse-drawn plow. He does this so that he can plant a crop that he can harvest later. The children care for the animals and the house. Anna tells the reader, Caleb and I did our chores…we shoveled out the stalls and laid down new hay. We fed the sheep. We swept and straightened and carried wood and water. Anna is also responsible for making the family s meals. She cooks stews and breads for her brother and father. 25
26 Thinking about the setting Where does Sarah, Plain and Tall take place? How does the author tell the reader this? What is the second setting of the book? In what ways does the reader find out what this place is like? When does Sarah, Plain and Tall take place? How does the author let the reader know this? What is your home like? How does it compare with Caleb and Anna s home on the prairie? 26
27 Themes/Layers of Meaning: Is That What It Really Means? Soon there will be a wedding… There will be Sarah s sea, blue and gray and green, hanging on the wall. And songs, old ones and new. Anna, Sarah, Plain and Tall The theme of a book is the subject matter about which the author is writing. Themes are the main ideas on which the book is based. Sarah, Plain and Tall has several themes. Let s investigate them! New beginnings The quotation above, spoken by Anna at the end of Sarah, Plain and Tall, illustrates one of the novel s main themes: new beginnings. Anna s words speak of the future of the family. She is hopeful about the new things that have happened to her recently. She looks forward to even more new things to come now that Sarah is staying. At the same time, she acknowledges the importance of keeping memories of her mother close to her heart. When the novel opens, Anna is patiently retelling Caleb stories of their mother, whose passing has left an emptiness in their lives. 27
28 They all feel alone without her but show this in different ways. Caleb never knew his mother because the day after he was born she died from complications from the birth. He has Anna tell him about their mother so that he can try to imagine what it would have been like to have her in his life. Anna thinks about her mother all the time. She recalls the songs they used to sing together. She remembers the last thing her mother said to her before she died, Isn t he beautiful, Anna? It is obvious that Jacob misses his wife. When Caleb asked his father why he doesn t sing anymore, Jacob tells him that he has forgotten the old songs. What he means is that he has been too sad to sing without his wife. He sees the chance to bring a new wife and mother to their home as a way to remember the old songs. When Jacob places the advertisement that Sarah answers, he is making a big step toward a new beginning for his family. It has been many years since his wife s death, and he wants to bring happiness into their lives. Caleb and Anna will have a mother figure and Jacob will have companionship. When Sarah arrives at the farm, she breathes new life into the sad family. Sarah brings stories of a faraway place called Maine. She has a nurturing personality. Sarah shows the family that she s loving, caring, and gentle. Anna says, Sarah brushed my hair and tied it up in back with a rose velvet ribbon she had brought from Maine. Then later, she says, Sarah kissed us all, even my father, who looked surprised. 28
29 Most important, Sarah brings a desire to have a new beginning of her own. For Sarah, moving to the prairie will allow her to feel needed by a family again, since her brother has a wife to care for him now. I miss my brother William. But he is married. The house is hers now. Not mine any longer, Sarah says. It also means that she will get to experience a brand-new place to live that is very different from the one she grew up in. With Anna s closing words of hope, Soon there will be a wedding…. There will be Sarah s sea, blue and gray and green, hanging on the wall. And songs, old ones and new, the author conveys a deep message. Sarah herself is a new beginning for a family that will always miss and love their mother and wife, but who desperately need light in their lives again. At the same time, this family is a chance for Sarah to make a new start, too. MacLachlan makes it clear that although the children love and welcome Sarah into their lives, this in no way lessens the love that they have for their deceased mother. They still miss her because there are always things to miss, even when your life has become happy again. The case is the same with Sarah and her brother, William. Although she misses him and loves him dearly, she has started a new chapter in her life and loves Jacob and the children, too. But loving them does not make her love or miss William any less. Family Another central theme in Sarah, Plain and Tall is that of family. Patricia MacLachlan once said, I see that I write books about 29
30 brothers and sisters, about what makes up a family, what works and what is nurturing. In this novel, the author has created a special and unique family. Today, most families are not formed by placing advertisements, like Jacob does. They are a loving family, nonetheless. Sarah is not the biological mother of Anna and Caleb, and she did not know or love Jacob before she came to stay on the prairie. But, by the close of the novel, Sarah interacts with the children and Jacob just as a mother or wife would. Anna tells the reader, We eat our night meal by candlelight, the four of us. Sarah has brought candles from town. And nasturtium seeds for her garden, and a book of songs to teach us. It is late, and Caleb is nearly sleeping by his plate and Sarah is smiling at my father. Many people think that a family is made up of a mom and a dad and their children. But, in reality, families are made up of all kinds of people, with all different kinds of relationships with one another. MacLachlan shows the reader that these families are as good as any other. MacLachlan reinforces family as an important theme in Sarah, Plain and Tall by showing the loving relationship that Caleb, Anna, and Jacob have with one another, even before Sarah s arrival. Anna and Caleb have a sweet, close sibling relationship. Anna teases Caleb by telling him that he looked like a ball of bread dough when he was born because he had no hair. This makes Caleb smile. MacLachlan shows their special brothersister bond when the two go into the barn together to cry. They worry about Sarah wanting to go into town alone, so they comfort each other. 30
31 The reader also sees the closeness of Jacob and his children: Papa put his arms around me and put his nose in my hair. Nice soapy smell, that stew, he said. I laughed. That s my hair. Caleb came over and threw his arms around Papa s neck and hung down as Papa swung him back and forth, and the dogs sat up. Abandonment One more important theme in Sarah, Plain and Tall is a less positive, but equally important one: abandonment. In this story, Jacob, Anna, and especially Caleb feel abandoned by their wife and mother. We see this theme expressed most vividly through Caleb. Caleb s mother died just after giving birth to him, so he never had a mother figure in his life. When Jacob tells the children about Sarah, Caleb worries before he even meets her. He asks Anna, Do you think she ll come? And will she stay? What if she thinks we are loud and pesky?… What if she comes and doesn t like our house? As Anna and Caleb await Sarah s arrival, Caleb asks Anna, Is my face clean?… Can my face be too clean?… Will she like us? After Sarah comes to the prairie, Caleb still worries. When Sarah expresses her desire to go to town alone for a day, Caleb gets very 31
32 upset. He asks Anna, Why?… Why does she have to go away alone? After Sarah goes to town and returns to them, Caleb bursts into tears. Seal was very worried! he cries to Sarah. Sarah puts her arms around Caleb, and he continues to cry, And the house is too small, we thought! And I am loud and pesky! Sarah has not abandoned him. Caleb feels so relieved that Sarah has returned that he finally confesses his fears to her. MacLachlan explores this sad theme with gentle humor, showing the reader that even though bad things sometimes happen in life, good things can come from them. In this book, even though Caleb s biological mother died, Sarah has come into his life and brought new happiness to it. Thinking about themes What do you think is the most important theme in Sarah, Plain and Tall? What are some different kinds of families that you know? Have you ever had a new beginning in your life? What was it? How did it change things for you? 32
33 Characters: Who Are These People, Anyway? The way an author develops the people in a story is called characterization. The writer helps the reader understand the people in the book by describing what they look like, how they act, the things they say and do, how they interact with the other characters, and how they react to different situations. This is a list of the characters in Sarah, Plain and Tall, followed by descriptions of the most important ones. Anna Caleb Jacob Sarah Wheaton Maggie Matthew Rose Violet a young girl, the narrator of the story Anna s younger brother Anna and Caleb s father a woman from Maine who answers an ad to be a wife and mother a neighbor of Jacob s family who befriends Sarah Maggie s husband, a friend of Jacob s a young daughter of Maggie and Matthew a young daughter of Maggie and Matthew Anna: Anna is the narrator of Sarah, Plain and Tall, which means she is the person speaking to the reader, telling the story of her family. She is a young girl, and although the author never says exactly how old she is, the reader can guess that she may be about twelve or thirteen years old. Anna is old enough to do 33
34 many of the household chores, like cooking, but she is still young enough to want a mother figure in her life to guide her. It s clear from the beginning of the book that Anna misses her mother deeply. She says to one of the dogs, I miss Mama. She talks about how her mother s death has stayed with her, even though it was many years ago: I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn t. Caleb s birth caused Anna s mother to die. This made it hard for Anna to accept Caleb. Anna loves Caleb very much now, but admits to the reader that it was hard to love him when he was first born. She says, It took three whole days for me to love him…. Anna has, in many ways, taken over the role her mother would have filled. She is very responsible, especially for such a young girl. Anna also does many of the chores around the farm, like feeding the animals. She prepares meals for the family and watches over Caleb. When Jacob reads Sarah s letter to Anna and Caleb, the first thing Anna does is look at Caleb. She has become like a mother to Caleb, so she wants to make sure he is not upset by what the letter says. Anna sees that the letter has made Caleb smile, so she knows he is all right. 34
35 Although she has had to grow up in many ways since her mother s death, Anna welcomes the presence of a mother figure in her life to make her feel like a girl again. Anna tells the reader, Sarah brushed my hair and tied it up in back with a rose velvet ribbon she had brought from Maine. She brushed hers long and free and tied it back, too, and we stood side by side looking into the mirror. I looked taller, like Sarah, and fair and thin. And with my hair pulled back I looked a little like her daughter. Sarah s daughter. Caleb: Caleb is Anna s younger brother, who is probably about seven or eight years old. Caleb and Anna s mother died the day after she gave birth to him. He never got a chance to know his mother because he was only a day old when she passed away. Caleb worries constantly that he will be left again, as he was when his mother died. This makes him very vulnerable. The way Caleb relates to Sarah illustrates this characteristic of his personality. He tracks Sarah s every movement, trying to guess if she is happy enough to stay. Anna tells the reader, Papa was quiet and shy with Sarah, and so was I. But Caleb talked to Sarah from morning until the light left the sky. Where are you going? he asked. To do what? Caleb also hangs on to the little clues in Sarah s comments. Sarah said winter. That means Sarah will stay, he reports to Anna. Caleb s fears also make him cry frequently. He depends on his older sister for comfort when his feelings overwhelm him. He frequently leans up against her or grabs her hand when he feels afraid. Anna tells the reader that when Sarah arrives she brings a conch 35
36 shell from Maine as a gift: She put it to Caleb s ear, then mine. Papa listened, too. Then Sarah listened once more, with a look so sad and far away that Caleb leaned against me. Caleb takes pleasure in the smallest things he learns from Sarah. He says cute, funny things and is playful because he is so young. The author makes it obvious that he enjoys having a woman to act as a mother in his life. When she explains to him that there is a flower called woolly ragwort in Maine, he laughs at its name and makes up a song about the plant. When Sarah teaches him that ayuh means yes in Maine, he repeatedly uses the term, even after the conversation has turned to another subject, Do you want more stew? Sarah asks Caleb. He replies with an ayuh. It s also clear how much Caleb likes learning new things from Sarah when she teaches the children to swim. MacLachlan tells us: Caleb lay on his back and learned how to blow streams of water high in the air like a whale, while Anna sank like a bucket filled with water. Sarah explains to Caleb what the waves in the ocean are like: Like this? asked Caleb, and he pushed a wave at Sarah, making her cough and laugh. Caleb also takes pleasure from teaching Sarah things about the prairie. When he tells her about the winter winds, Caleb stood up and ran like the wind, and the sheep ran after him. Sarah and I watched him jump over rock and gullies, the sheep behind him, stiff legged and fast. He circled the field, the sun making the top of his hair golden. 36
37 Jacob: Jacob is the father of Anna and Caleb. He has a home and farm for his family on the prairie. He works the land himself, with the help of Caleb s small hands and occasionally the more capable hands of his neighbor, Matthew. He also maintains the house and cares for the animals on the farm, so the reader knows he is a very hard worker. One of the most important things about Jacob is that he is a caring person. This is very obvious in his relationship with his children. The reader learns that when they ve had snow in the winter months, he takes his children to school in the wagon and bakes them warm bread. After Jacob receives a letter from Sarah expressing that she d like to come to the prairie to see what she thinks of their family, Jacob informs Anna and Caleb, Sarah has said she will come for a month s time if we wish her to…to see how it is. Just to see. He asks his children for their approval because their happiness is even more important than his own. Caleb says, I think…i think that it would be good to say yes. Then Jacob looks to Anna for her response: I say yes, she replies. It is only when he has the approval of both that Jacob is able to say for sure that he will accept Sarah s offer. The day Jacob goes to pick up Sarah at the train station, he makes the extra effort to look nice and make a good impression on her. Anna says, Papa got up early for the long day s trip to the train and back. He brushed his hair so slick and shiny that Caleb laughed. He wore a clean blue shirt, and a belt instead of suspenders. After Sarah arrives, Jacob wants to make her happy and comfortable in her new surroundings. He re-creates a dune for her in the barn, which is something she misses from Maine: 37
38 Next to the barn was Papa s mound of hay for bedding, nearly half as tall as the barn, covered with canvas to keep the rain from rotting it. Papa carried the wooden ladder from the barn and leaned it up against the hay. There. He smiled at Sarah. Our dune. MacLachlan makes it clear that Jacob is happy to have Sarah in his life. He teaches her to drive the wagon and to plow, he accepts her help fixing the roof, and he lets her cut his hair. He understands that Sarah is independent and lets her be herself. When Sarah explains to Jacob that she wants to be able to go into town alone, he says, That s a fair thing, Sarah. When the children are upset waiting to see if Sarah will return from her trip to town, Jacob explains, Sarah is Sarah. She does things her own way, you know. From this, the reader can tell Jacob respects Sarah s individuality. Jacob s caring nature is also displayed in the thoughtful gestures he makes toward Sarah: And then Papa came, just before the rain, bringing Sarah the first roses of summer. The reader also sees that Jacob is sensitive and kind when, during the big storm, he follows Sarah back out into the rain and wind to help her save the chickens she loves. Sarah Wheaton: Sarah is a woman from Maine who responds to an advertisement she reads in the newspaper. The advertisement was for a woman to be a companion to Jacob and to act as a mother to Anna and Caleb. 38
39 Sarah is the focus of Sarah, Plain and Tall, so the reader learns a great deal about her. At the beginning, the reader finds out about Sarah from the letters she writes to Anna, Caleb, and Jacob. In her first letter to Jacob, Sarah is very straightforward. She does not hesitate to tell him things about herself that he may not like. She writes, I am strong and I work hard and I am willing to travel. But I am not mild mannered. Sarah displays that she is not mild mannered in person after she arrives on the prairie. When Caleb tells her that women don t wear overalls, Sarah simply says, This woman does. It is through direct, blunt statements that Sarah shows her independence. She wants to be able to do things on her own. Sarah insists that Jacob teach her things: I want to learn how to ride a horse. And then I want to learn how to drive the wagon. We also learn that Sarah can be stubborn when she has her mind set on something. When Sarah tells Jacob that she wants to learn to ride Jacob s horse, Jacob says no: Not Jack. Jack is sly. Sarah responds, I am sly, too. Her persistence makes Jacob smile, but still he says, Ayuh [yes]. But not Jack. Sarah raises her voice to make Jacob understand that she is serious: Yes, Jack! Sarah is the type of woman who does not like to be told what she can and can t do, or what she is or is not capable of doing. She is willful and determined. Jacob tells her that he has to fix the roof right away before a bad storm comes. We will fix the roof, Sarah tells him. And then she adds, I ve done it before. I know about roofs. I am a good carpenter. And so Jacob and Sarah climb the 39
40 ladder to the roof to repair it together. Anna notices that Sarah is wearing overalls like her papa s: Overalls that were Papa s. Sarah is a free spirit. She does things that make her happy, even if other people might think her actions are unusual or silly. This is shown when she decides to teach the children to swim in the cow pond, a possibility the children had never considered before. There is also a soft, gentle side to Sarah s personality. She likes to pick wildflowers to dry and hang up. She likes to brush Anna s hair and pull it back with pretty ribbon. Sarah loves animals. She brings her gray cat, Seal, with her from Maine. She adores the dogs that live on the farm. Sarah befriends the chickens Maggie gives her. Sarah loved the chickens. She clucked back to them and fed them grain. They followed her, shuffling and scratching primly in the dirt. I knew they would not be for eating, Anna tells us. Sarah even runs back out into a terrible rainstorm to save them. Sarah also loves the sheep that inhabit the farm. Anna says, The sheep made Sarah smile. She sank her fingers into their thick, coarse wool. She talked to them, running with the lambs, letting them suck on her fingers. When a lamb dies, the reader also sees that Sarah is protective of the children. Sarah does not allow Anna or Caleb near the dead animal, and she sits on the porch alone after Jacob buries it. The gentle side of Sarah s personality is also shown in the way that she misses her home and her brother and aunts she left in 40
41 Maine. When the neighbors, Maggie and Matthew, come to visit for the day, Maggie and Sarah discuss Sarah s homesickness. You are lonely, yes? Maggie asks Sarah. This makes Sarah s eyes fill with tears, and she confesses, I miss the sea. Anna overhears as Sarah goes on to tell Maggie, I miss my brother William…There are three old aunts who all squawk together like crows at dawn. I miss them, too. Thinking about the characters Is there a character in Sarah, Plain and Tall you think is a little like you? How so? If not, do any of the characters seem like someone else in your life? in what ways? Which of the characters do you like the most? the least? Why? Are Anna and Caleb similar to kids you know who are the same age? How are they different? 41
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