Sarah, Plain and Tall

Patricia MacLachlan

Presenter: Cindy

• Meet the author• Summary of Sarah, Plain and Tall • Setting• Main characters• Point of view• Vocabulary• Post-reading activities• Theatre works• Question for discussion

Outlines 

Meet the Author

Patricia MacLachlan is the bestselling author of beloved books for young readers, including

• Arthur, For the Very First Time (1987), winner of the Golden Kite Award for fiction;

• The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt (1988); and • Sarah, Plain and Tall (1985), winner of the 1986

Newbery Medal, as well as its sequels, Skylark (1994), Caleb’s Story (2001), and More Perfect Than the Moon (2004).

Meet the Author

• Her picture books include Three Names (1991), All the Places to Love (1994), What You Know First (1995), and Once I Ate a Pie, and Painting the Wind, which she coauthored with her daughter, Emily.

Summary• Anna and Caleb Witting live on a prairie

farm with their widowed father who advertises for a wife. Sarah arrives from Maine to visit for a month with her cat named Seal, and a few reminders of her beloved sea, which she shares with the children. The Wittings hope she will overcome her homesickness and become part of their family.

Setting • Place: The story is set somewhere on the

great American prairie (a large, grassy, and treeless area) at a time when horses still served as the major mode of transportation.

• Time: It takes place in the nineteenth century.

Main Characters• Anna: a young girl, the narrator of the story• Caleb: Anna’s younger brother• Sarah: A woman from Maine who answers an ad

to be a wife and mother• Jacob: Anna and Caleb’s father• Maggie: a neighbor of Jacob’s family who

befriends Sarah• Matthew: Maggie’s husband, a friend of Jacob’s• Rose: a young daughter of Maggie and Matthew• Violet: a young daughter of Maggie and Matthew

Point of View • The point of view is the eldest child’s, Anna’s,

throughout the book, although the narration is delivered in the 3rd person.

• Anna is a reticent young lady. She takes after her father, who does not verbalize his feelings often. The reader is thus forced to interpret how Anna feels about things based upon her reactions to the events of the story, particularly her reactions to her voluble little brother’s many questions and concerns.

• Caleb, unlike Anna, is always ready to voice his emotions, particularly his fears about Sarah leaving them.

Vocabulary

• Windbreak• Rustle• Alarmed• Paddock• Conch• Glossary (Appendix

p. 47-48)

windbreak

• Row of trees used to block the wind

rustle

• Soft sounds made by things rubbing together

alarmed

• Frightened or worried

paddock

• Fenced-in piece of land usually used for grazing horses

Conch

• conch the spiral-shaped shell of a marine animal

Fill in the blanks:

1. I was __________ when the stranger pounded on the door.

2. The ____________ of pine trees kept me from getting too cold.

3. There was a beautiful _________ that washed up along the shore.

4. The __________ of leaves in the fall is very soothing.5. The horse and pony grazed together in the

_____________________.

windbreak rustle alarmed paddock conch

Post-reading activities

• Hangman• Go For the Grammar

Gold – More about Nouns

Theatre works (USA)

• Sarah, Plain and Tall--The Musical.http://www.sarahplainandtall.net/

Question for Discussion

• Why is Anna uncomfortable around Caleb? Why does she associate him with her mother’s death? Is it fair that she thinks of her mother’s death when she thinks of Caleb?

Thank you!