Sarah, Plain and Tall

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Jacob Witting, a widowed farmer who is still saddened by the death of his wife several years earlier, giving birth to Caleb, finds that the task of taking care of his farm and two children, Anna and Caleb, is too difficult to handle alone. He writes an ad in the newspaper for a mail-order bride. Sarah, from Maine, answers his ad and travels out to become his wife. But Sarah grows homesick - the prairie grass didn't substitute for the Maine sea shore. When Sarah leaves for a trip into town, the kids wonder if she would come back. And she did. She had brought back colored pencils so she could show them the beautiful colors and views of Maine and gorgeous sea shore. She, Anna, Caleb, and Jacob have show more a lot of good times that lead to Caleb loving Sarah even more, but Anna fears that she will replace her mother.

My Review: I have a tattered, crappy-looking, well-loved copy of this from the 1980s. It's a simple story of life on the prairies in the 19th century, and of a bygone definition of marriage. It was, in simplest terms, a contract meant to provide for a family, an unromantic business deal that led to survival for all concerned in a time when that was a pretty darn good result to a life.

Traditional marriage, my left nut. This is as traditional as they get and it ain't gonna pass the modern woman's sniff test, no matter how conservative and traditional she thinks she is.

So. The story.

Patricia MacLachlan packs more good storytelling into these sixty or so pages than I can shake a stick at. She makes, in a very few words, the children leap off the page and into my mind's eye; Sarah, with her simple love of all things in the world, is kind of a hippie earth mother, and Papa Jacob doesn't come across as much of anybody either, but since it's told from the kids' PoV I didn't mark that as a problem. After all, do kids ever really think of parents in any light other than Parent? Dad or Mom? Not for very long at a stretch, and certainly not when the kid's got a one-digit age.

But the simple story of a wounded family healing, and a new family being built, makes the few and simple events burst with meaning. MacLachlan tells a sentimental story and romanticizes a harsh reality, but does it by emphsizing the goodness inherent in her characters. That works better on her pages than in a short description...it sounds pat and oversimplified when I say it, but in a book aimed at a kid of ten, it is satisfying and beguiling.

I hope that, somewhere in the mists of time, this story came true and the plain and tall mail-order bride was loved and valued like Sarah came to be.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less

This Newberry Medal winner is just as charming as I remembered, though for different reasons. As a child, I liked the idea of the pioneer life and a happy family coming together. This time around, I was taken by MacLachlan’s ability to capture perfectly a child’s experience of loss, loneliness and fear. It’s such a sweet story of a motherless family welcoming a mail-order bride to their farm on the prairie, but told with such beautiful imagery and language that there is enough to hold an adult’s attention.

Another Little Free Library find. I'm surprised how much I remembered. The book is more of a series of scenes than a linear narrative, but those scenes are touching and have stayed with me for at least two decades.

The Whittings--father Jacob, daughter Anna, and youngest son Caleb--have been without a wife and mother since theirs died after giving birth to Caleb. They've had relatives and a housekeeper to help them, but now Jacob would like a wife. He places an advertisement in a newspaper back east and Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton of Maine responds. She loves the sea, but her brother has married and she wants a change. Anna and Caleb are charmed from her first letter, and Sarah is even better in person: she is plain and tall, as promised; show more she brings a cat and seashells; she draws, sings, is an excellent carpenter, is eager to learn how to plow and ride horses and drive the carriage, and she loves the farm. But Caleb is worried he's too talkative and pesky, and Anna can tell how much Sarah misses the sea. Will Sarah want to stay with the Whittings?

It's unusual to find such a simple, happy family story. Maybe that's not realistic, but it's nice to see, for once, a family that loves each other. Even Anna's thought that "it took three whole days for me to love [Caleb]" after her mother died (p. 6) says as much about her love at the time of the story as it does about her pain when she lost her mother. We get other, similarly unsugarcoated slices of life on the frontier, both the lighthearted moments and the hard reality of being lonely, miles away from neighbors and town. And I've remembered those emotions described by MacLachlan for years. I can still remember my first time reading this, being anxious right along with Anne and Caleb to find out whether Sara would leave or stay--and that kind of emotional staying power is rare.

Sarah, Plain and Tall is a plain and simple story packed with heart and full of family and love. If you haven't read it, you're missing out.

Disclaimer: I might have shared two of Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton's name in my younger years (with one changed letter) but that does not in any way impact my opinion of this story. ;-) show less

Caleb and Anna are two young children living with their father in the middle of prairie land in the late 1800s. It’s been years since their mother passed away and they see their father Jake’s loneliness every day. He decides to advertise for a wife and receives a reply from a woman is Maine. She describes herself as “plain and tall” and decides to visit them on a trial basis.

Sarah, Plain and Tall was a beautiful reminder that the power of a story is not dependent upon length. In just over 50 pages the author pulls you in, and you're right there with two motherless children feeling their loneliness and desperation for someone to complete their family. With very few words we get to know their father and the tenderness that he show more hides just below the surface. Then we meet Sarah and with her strength and her memories of the sea we fall in love with her. We wonder, along with the children and Jake, will she stay?

BOTTOM LINE: Just a beautiful story, crafted to give a glimpse into history while delivering an emotional punch. show less

“There are always things to miss," said Maggie. "No matter where you are.”

Sarah, Plain and Tall is just everything I love in a Children’s book. Easy to understand for a little child, yet profound and filled with wisdom and poetic beauty that will grab the attention of every adult. A story about a widowed man and his two children who live on a farm - he puts an ad in the paper seeking a wife - and Sarah arrives - there’s a lot of speculation among the children about Sarah. Does she like them? Will she stay? Will she marry their father? Can she overcome her longing for the sea at home? They are all guessing and wondering what the future will bring in this period of learning to trust and understand each other.

A story told in show more sparse language that resembles the simple, quiet, remote prairie life. A quick read, but one that will stay with me a long time. show less

Anna and Caleb live with their father in the plains. Their mother died when Caleb was born, and now their father decided to put an advertisement in the paper for a wife and mother for his children. Sarah Wheaton answers, and agrees to come visit from Maine. She brings joy and song to the house - but will she stay?

Rereading this was an unexpected comfort read for me. The story is very short, almost a sketch or an outline, leaving the reader to fill in some of the details. The relationships between the characters are very sweet, and you feel for young Anna and Caleb wanting to have Sarah stay, and afraid she'll be too homesick and leave.

A young woman from Maine comes to a Nebraska homestead as a mail-order bride. The writer seems to share Sarah's Down East reticence as she tells this story in a few carefully chosen words. The emotions and personalities of the characters shine forth in the spare but deeply felt narrative.