Sarah, Plain and Tall
by Patricia MacLachlan
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HarperCollins (New York): 1985. Trade paperback: 58 pages. ISBN-10: 0-06-440205-3 Suggested retail price: $5.99 (US) Award: 1986 Newbery Medal Tags: Children; cows; farms; flowers; made into movie; mail-order brides; sheep Tactical strength: [10/10] |
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MacLachlan tells a simple, but unusual, story of a midwestern farming family searching for a replacement mother. Anna, probably about ten or twelve years old, narrates the story. Her mother died giving birth to her brother, and now about six years later, her father, Jacob, has put in an advertisement for a mail-order bride. Sarah from Maine responds to the advertisement and agrees to come to the farm for a trial. Everyone wants to make a good impression on Sarah, but clearly, Sarah misses the ocean and her family in the East.
Sara, Plain and Tall has a compact efficiency that creates a deceptive simplicity. As Nathaniel Hawthorne has said, "Easy reading is damned hard writing," and clearly MacLachlan worked hard to perfect her text. Every action in the book emphasizes the emotion of the story. The interaction of the characters with the animals and the land creates a portrait of 19th Century farm life more complete than you could ever gleen from contemporary articles in the Farmer's Almanac. The characters openly discuss their desire to have Sarah stay on the prairie with them. Through MacLachlan's prose you get a sense of the emptiness left when Anna's mother died, and the sincere longing for someone to provide a mother's love.
You can see one example of this complexity in how MacLachlan uses singing as a symbol. Caleb interrogates Anna about the mother he never knew, and he asks about whether their mother sang. Anna tells him that not only did their mother sing, but their father used to sing too. Caleb in his childlike simplicity asks Sarah if she sings, and indeed she does. Sarah brings her own songs from Maine and teaches them to Jacob and the children. This one symbol shows how Sarah can in one way fill a void in the family's lives, but in another way will never fill that void. Sarah can fill the need the family has for motherly love, but she brings a different set of songs. She doesn't look to replace Anna's mother's songs, but simply has her own contribution to make to the family. Anna and Jacob will still feel the loss of Anna's mother and her songs, but they can also happily partake in the joy Sarah and her songs brings.
MacLachlan turns almost every item in her storytelling into similar symbols: flowers, baking, cooking, plowing, horsemanship. Sarah's presence subtly changes not only her own but all the character's relationships with these symbols. Through this careful manipulation of symbols, MacLachlan creates a simple story that resonates with the longing everyone has to feel wanted and a part of a family.
