Sarah Plain and Tall is a historical fiction book. The author's purpose is to entertain, but also give a feeling for what it was like in the late nineteenth century. It is entertaining and a little informative.
A main idea of the book Sarah Plain and Tall is family. The whole story revolves around Sarah coming to live with Jacob, Anna, and Caleb. She comes to love them very much after she gets to know them. She decides to stay with them even though she really misses her old home by the sea. This is all centering on family. Another theme is missing your past. Sarah struggles with this throughout the whole book, because she is used to living by the sea and on the coast. Coming to the prairie is a definite change and Sarah is homesick. She has to overcome this if she wants to stay with Jacob, Anna, and Caleb. She says, “I will always miss my old home, but the truth of it is I would miss you more.” This shows that she was able to overcome her homesickness because she would rather be with the ones she loves, Jacob, Anna, and Caleb. Mothers are a central figure in this book as well because Sarah is coming to be the mother to Anna and Caleb as well as the wife to Jacob. Anna and Caleb are lacking a mother figure ever since their mother died, so when Sarah comes, they are happy they get a mother to care for and love them again.
The book starts with Caleb asking Anna about their late mother. He asks her if their mother used to sing. She did, along with their father. “Every-single-day,” she would sing. Caleb can’t remember any of this though, for he was just born when his mother died. So he asks, “‘Can you remember her songs?’... ‘if you remember the songs than maybe I will remember her, too.” Anna cannot remember the songs, however. When Caleb asks his father if he remembers the old songs, he says he can’t, but tells them of Sarah, who may come and be their new mother. And she would be able to sing. So Sarah comes to see if she likes it there and wants to marry Jacob. They have much fun together, sliding down hay dunes and playing with the sheep. But throughout this time, Sarah struggles with missing her home back by the sea. She has to overcome this. One day, they have a picnic with their neighbors, Matthew, Maggie, Rose and Violet. Maggie has come from the, “...hills of Tennessee…” She sometimes misses them, but gives Sarah some advice, “‘There are always things to miss… no matter where you are.’” This helps Sarah overcome her homesickness. Later, a storm comes, a squall. While Jacob and Sarah fix the roof, Anna and Caleb herd the animals inside the barn. The squall comes with much rain and hail, but eventually goes away. Once the sun is out and the squall is over, Sarah learns to drive a wagon alone. So she goes off to town alone. Caleb and Anna are afraid she wanted to go to town alone so she could leave because she doesn’t like them. But when she comes back she says, “I would miss you more [than the sea].” She buys colored pencils, a songbook, and some candles. They eat dinner together and there will be a wedding later in the summer.”
The author, Patricia MacLachlan, affects people’s emotions with this book. It’s a heartwarming tale of motherly love. It’s challenging at times, of course, because Sarah deals with the struggle of missing the sea. It’s also sad when Caleb and Anna feel that Sarah will leave them. But when she decides to stay, it is really touching and happy. The book is also partly informative, because it looks in on a person’s (though fictional) life in the late nineteenth century and how it might go. Patricia MacLachlan once said, “There is joy… in creating surprising insight into a character...Books affect lives, especially children’s lives, because children have a genuine belief in the truth of stories, the ultimate gift for a writer. It’s a shared gift - from writer to reader and back again.” This shows the author’s true joy in sharing stories with others.
The writer is writing this book for children, so she uses simple language and a simple plot to get her story across. It is a tale of a mother’s love and family. She also uses much imagery and description to captivate the young children, such as when she describes the flowers and plants, “...green grass fields that bloomed with Indian paintbrush, red and orange, and blue-eyed grass.” She also uses much dialogue to get our interest. And she only has a few characters, so we can get to know each of them well. We develop a relationship with the characters and hope the best for them. And she does all this in around 60 pages. It is an entertaining and a bit of an informative story for kids and adults to enjoy.
