Sarah, Plain and Tall

Title: “Sarah Plain and Tall”

Author: Patricia MacLachan                                                        

Genre: Fiction                                                                                   

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers                                        

Copyright Date: 1987

Pages in Book:

Reading Level: 3-5 grade

Summary: Sarah, Plain and Tall is a story of a widower (Jacob Whitting) who tries to find a mother for his children Anna and Calab after their mother dies. Jacob Whitting puts an ad in the paper, asking for a wife. Sarah Wheaton answers this ad all the way from Maine. They write each other for a while, and then Sarah decides to leave her wonderful home and join Jacob, Anna and Calab for a period of time (a month). Once Sarah reaches the prairie, she reaches out to the children, telling them of her home by the ocean. She learns quickly that life on the prairie is hard, and really can take a toll on one’s life. She begins to wonder if she would be able to make this broken family whole again.

Reaction: I remember liking this book as a young teen, but once I read it again, I didn’t! I got bored with it quite quickly, and longed to put it down! I didn’t feel like it moved along very well and to me, it just made the prairie life seem boring and not exciting.

Recommendation: I honestly can’t decide whether I would recommend this to anyone. But if I did, it would probably be to children a little bit older than the recommended grade levels.

Potential Problems/Conflicts: I don’t think that children going through a divorce or a decease parent would really want to read this book. It’s about how the children wanted their father to move on a be able to laugh again, but not all children feel that way! Many of them don’t want there to be any change for the fear of forgetting.