Sarah, Plain and Tall: 1986 Newbery Award Winner

In March of 2014, I started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book.  A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all.  Want to keep track of which books I read?  Check them out at Confessions of a Wannabe Reader!

Cover of the book - used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause

Sarah Elizabeth Wheaton: Plain and tall

Anna and Caleb Witting live a lonely life on the prairie, and have ever since their mother died the day after Caleb was born.  Their father, Jacob, us to be happy, but now he's just as lonely as they are.  So when he places an ad for a bride and a mother in the newspapers back East, they want to know who will answer.  Sarah Wheaton, a plain and tall woman from Maine, answers them.  She soon comes for a month-long visit with her cat, Seal, and the family learns just what a wonderful woman she is.  But will she stay?

This short novella, Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, was perhaps the very first Newbery Award book I ever read.  I loved it then and even recall seeing the movie one day in class.  I loved it again as I read it under the maple tree in the front yard of my apartment building.  It is a touching story about loss.  Anna and Caleb have lost their mother, and fear losing Sarah if she doesn't like living on the prairie.  Sarah misses her brother and the sea, as she lived on the coast of Maine.  But their is also love, and warmth and growth. The story is very short, but the story is sweet and very touching.  

Like Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, this story touches on the lives of those living on the prairie in the 19th century.  It doesn't sugarcoat the hardships, as there is a death mentioned in the first few pages of the story and a severe storm that comes through the farm.  But there is also strength in its pages, as Sarah and the children learn and grow together.  The story is a great piece of historical fiction and a fast read.

The Midwife's Apprentice: 1996 Newbery Award

I have started a new undertaking: reading every single Newbery Medal Winner book.  A number of them I have read in the past, but I am reading them with fresh eyes,and reviewing them for others. I am not reading them in order, as some will require some effort on my part to find them all.  Want to keep track of which books I read?  Check them out at Confessions of a Wannabe Reader!

Cover of the book - The image is used for identification purposes only under the fair use clause.

Alyce: The Girl Who Learns

"She was not an inn girl or a nursery maid or a companion to old women.  She was a midwife's apprentice with a newborn hope of being someday a midwife herself."

The story starts out with a nobody.  She had no home and had no name but Brat.  For as long as she could remember, she had no one to take care of her and had begged or stolen for scraps.  Brat is taken in, somewhat begrudgingly, by a midwife named Jane Sharp.  Jane gives the girl the nickname Beetle, and makes her work hard for what scraps she is given.  Beetle befriends an orange tabby cat, adopts a little beggar boy called Runt as her brother and begins to name those around her with no name.  The cat becomes Purr, the boy becomes Edward, and Beetle chooses the name Alyce. Eventually, by learning, overcoming her fears, and adapting, Alyce earns her place in the world, and the nobody becomes somebody. 

The Midwife's Apprentice, the 1996 Newbery Award winner by Karen Cushman, was an excellent read, and a great glimpse into the lives of villagers in Medival England.  While this book may not be entirely historically accurate, the story was plausible enough that it could happen.  The protagonist, first called Brat, then Beetle and finally Alyce, is a typical young girl for her time, edging on the verge of womanhood.  She has always been pushed down and bullied because of her homeless origins, and as a result, she feels she is stupid.  This resonates with those who feel like they can't ever get a break.  While the ending isn't a happily ever after ending, it left me feeling optimistic that Alyce would be able to find her way in the future.  

Pets are Family too!

My cat, Twix, has a fascination with my walk-in bedroom closet.  She meows to get inside it just about every time we're changing and has on occasion gotten locked inside the closet because we didn't know she was in there and shut the door.

My great uncle Bill hugging the family dog, early 1900s

In researching family trees, pets are often overlooked.  But talking about them can bring the best memories to light.   My dad has said he's never liked cats, but yet we had a cat when I was a baby, proof below, and another when I was growing up in Southern California.

Tigger, my dad, and baby me

When I was a baby, my parents also owned a Labrador dog named Lucas that guarded me and taught me how to walk.  He was a sweet dog but super protective of "his" baby.  He was killed when he was hit by a car.  A neighbor had let him out.

My maternal grandparents owned a dog by the name of Whiskey.  He was a terrier of some sort and a small dog, but I could remember him being mean, or maybe he was just annoyed by the little kids that bugged him (myself included).  He loved only my grandfather, and I know my parents have a picture of Whiskey sitting on Grandpop's lap.

My aunt, uncle, dad and PeeWee at Christmas in the 60s

My dad's family had a dog named PeeWee.  He was featured prominently in family pictures as another one of the kids and was well loved by my dad and his siblings. 

And again at Easter

My great-grandparents had a cocker-spaniel named Rusty that they loved to walk.  The dog was rusty colored and mean to some of the grandchildren that were almost always at the house, and actually snapped at one of my mother's cousins when she was a child.  He was stopped by a command from my great-grandfather.  That stories sparked a conversation that opened up a flood of memories about a generation that has been gone for over 50 years. 

A cousin's dogs in 1951

Pets are a large part of our lives in the present.  Why can't they also be a part of our past as well?  So often converations about pets are limited when interviewing people about their family history.  Sometimes a mentioned pet will bring a smile to someone's face and start an entire conversation of happy moments in a family members life.  Even thinking backon my own life, I find myself smiling over pets I have had:

Besides Lucas and Tigger the cat, there was Woo-Woo the white labrador that was a bit of a pet.  There was Grouchy, our lab-cocker mix that we had from the time I was five until well into high school who loved to eat crayons and tinsel and was anything but grouchy.  There was Charlie, the loveable mutt and the only dog to ever bite me, though he didn't mean to. (My brother, on the other hand, seems to have been a dog-bite magnet, having been bitten by at least three dogs in his childhood). There was Boo-Boo Kitty, the ferocious tom-cat who loved pick fights with possums and other cats as well as curl up in a lap and sleep.  There was Moses, the stray we had for a month before he passed away.  There was Tigger the orange tabby that my husband and I owned for a year before we had to give him away.  There was also the countless numbers of fish and bugs and other small creatures that my siblings and I owned growing up, including a salamander and a crawdad.

My two cats, Barbossa and Twix

There are also the present day animal family members.  There is Moose, my parents' lovable and old labrador-mastiff mix that enjoys a warm spot and getting all the attention he can and has been with my parents since I was a senior in high school.  And of course, there are my wonderful cats Twix and Barbossa who live with me now.  My sister also owns two crazy and loveable terrier dogs.  They are all members of my family, and offer as much love and affection as the human members do.