Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that an unwed teen gets pregnant, has the baby, and eventually marries the father. Some members of the main characters' family die of cholera.
Families who read this book could discuss the immigrant experience. How could people have lived through such hardships? What would you have done in their circumstances? What was there in Jeannie's character that enabled her family to succeed? Also, families may want to research and write up their own ancestors' immigrant experiences.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Written in what seems like free-verse poetry, this story gives a double dose of pleasure. The first comes in reading THE BRAID -- a lovely, lyrical evocation of some very hard times, told in two voices, with intervening odes to various aspects of the story. In stripped-down words and images the essence of the immigrant experience is conveyed with power and passion -- and mercifully without stereotypes, even in the secondary characters. The lives these people led were hard enough to make the story resonate without peppering it with the kind of cardboard villains that too often populate books of this genre.
The second pleasure comes when you finish the story and get to the Author's Notes, where she reveals the intricate, complex, Celtic-knot inspired structure of her poetry and it becomes clear that this is so much more than just free verse. It's far too complicated to describe here, but few readers will be able to resist the urge to go back and look at the text again with this new knowledge, and lovers of wordplay will be especially delighted. Braids are not only a major theme of the story, they are the way the whole thing is actually structured. It's unique and utterly fascinating.
From The Book
Canada seemed far away, the salty sea so close, our
journey not yet started. We walked back home. "Hush now," Sarah said,
"they'll be asleep." So they were, but we were wide awake when
we went to our bed. I took the hairbrush from the wooden
bench, and sat by Sarah, brushing out her long thick hair. "Oh,
Jeannie" ... Sarah whispered. "I can't" .. She drew in her breath. Then ...
"Goodnight." (Or did she say "goodbye"?) She loosened my braids, held
them in her hand, and brushed my hair so hard -- I should have known.
But how could I? Then Sarah braided my hair with her own,
close and tight, so our heads were touching. We started laughing.
"Will you girls go to sleep? It's near morning!" Father called. Like two
cats curled together, we slept that night. Or -- did Sarah sleep?
She must have stayed awake until I slept. She must have had
her sewing scissors tucked into her pocket. Sarah knew
where she was going. I woke to no warm place beside me.
She'd cut the braid close to our heads, tucked half into my hand --
"You/me/sisters/always."
Plot Summary:
In the 1850s, after being evicted from the land their family has lived on for generations, Scottish sisters Jeannie and Sarah are torn apart -- Sarah to stay behind and settle with her grandmother on the island of Mingulay, Jeannie to go with her parents and younger siblings to Canada. Each sister keeps a braid made of hair from both, fearing they may never see each other again. But plans on both sides of the ocean go astray.
In Scotland things seem to be going well, until Sarah falls in love and gets pregnant out of wedlock. On the ship to Canada cholera breaks out, and several of the family succumb. Upon reaching Canada, those left are in desperate straits -- until Jeannie finds reserves of strength she never knew she had. Includes Author's Notes on Form, People, Language, and Places.
Related Books:
Also by Helen Frost:
Keesha's House
Spinning through the Universe
More Stories in Poetry:
Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
Under the Pear Tree by Brenda Seabrooke
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Halprin Wayland
Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff
The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge
Witness by Karen Hesse
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse
God Went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant
Becoming Joe DiMaggio by Maria Testa
Shakespeare Bats Cleanup by Ron Koertge
North of Everything by Craig Crist-Evans
More Immigrant Stories:
The Journey of the Shadow Bairns by Margaret J. Anderson
Lupita Manana by Patricia Beatty
Grab Hands and Run by Frances Temple
The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child by Francisco Jiménez
Small Beauties: The Journey of Darcy Heart O'Hara by Elvira Woodruff
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Sexual ContentKissing; an unwed teen gets pregnant. |
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ViolenceSome characters die of cholera. |
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Social BehaviorMain characters -- two teen girls -- show perseverance in difficult circumstances. |
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