Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

 

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, 112 pages  

Is there anything so delightful as revising a book you loved as a child?! The surprising details that have stayed in the back of your memory somewhere, the charming little things you didn’t notice at a different point in your life, the surprise when you find yourself identifying with the adults in the story...what’s not to love? I had read this one several times, and certainly long after it was an academic challenge, just because it was so darn good.

This is the story of a father and two children in a setting that I took to be 1880’s Kansas, but was surprised on this read to find it actually a little more vague. A widower places a personal ad in the newspaper, and his two children eagerly await an answer. A response comes from the titular Sarah of the exotic land of Maine. Sarah arrives to spend a month the family before deciding if she’ll marry the widower and stay forever. Behaving as no actual children ever have, the kiddos strive to impress Sarah both because they want so much to have a stepmother and because they come to love her as an individual. They enjoy a sampling of prairie-life experiences, and hear how different things are in Maine. It’s difficult to call this a spoiler because the book is 40 years old, and because it’s a predictable light-hearted romp: Sarah decides to join the family!  

Of course this is one of many White People on the Great Plains type of books, that don’t offer a variety of experiences, but did lack the more overt racism of the Little House books (which you’d expect from 1980s and 1930s books, respectively). It did get a little monotonous that Sarah responds to everything with “in Maine, we do xyz instead!” Girl, we get it, you’re from Maine! Otherwise, a fun little one-sitting read.