A Stitch in Time - Ann Rinaldi

A compelling story about sisters in 1700s Salem.

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Book details

Author:Ann Rinaldi
# of pages: 305
Publisher:Scholastic Inc.
Original Publication Date: 01/01/1994
Genre: Fiction - Historical Fiction
Paperback: $5.99
Publisher's Recommended Reading Level: Young Adult
Read Alone: 13+

Parents need to know

Parents need to know that readers will learn about seafaring, some natural history, and much of the culture of early American New England. The books includes descriptions of attacks by whites on Native Americans and examines differing historical viewpoints on slavery and the treatment of Native Americans.

Families can talk about the three sisters' distinct personalities and how their differences help shape the story line. How would you describe Hannah? Abigail? Thankful? What's the purpose of the quilt the girls are working on? Is it at all symbolic, or is it simply a literary device that ties the series together?

Message
Violence
Sex
Language

Message

Social Behavior:

Examines differing historical viewpoints on slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. Some characters are insensitive. The girls constantly (but justifiably) defy their father.

Consumerism:

Drugs/Alcohol/Tobacco:

Violence

Brief descriptions of attacks by whites on Native Americans.

Sex

Cabot was an illegitimate child, and he sees Richard with "disreputable women."

Language

Common Sense says

What's the story?

Reviewed by Amy Brotman

It's 1788. Sisters Hannah, Abigail, and Thankful and their brother, Cabot, live in Salem, Massachusetts, a seafaring town bent on making money. The greediest of all, their father, Nathaniel, tyrannizes his family, favors the deceitful Thankful, and dislikes Cabot. Abigail taunts her father into sending her to her room, and elopes with Nate Videau to South Carolina.

Hannah wants to marry Richard Lander, but he's too busy overhauling his ship for a secret mission. The townsfolk suspect he's buying slaves, and disapprove. Handsome frontiersman Louis, who's also in love with Hannah, returns from Ohio with his daughter, a half-breed girl, for Hannah to raise. Thankful insists on accompanying her father and Louis back to Ohio, but she's captured by Native Americans. Will Hanna marry Richard? Will Thankful return? Read the next two books to find out.

Is it any good?

While some will be put off by plot complexity and erratic writing, soap-opera fans can find plenty of fun in Ann Rinaldi's historical fiction. A STITCH IN TIME gives them memorable characters, some chewy romance and sibling rivalry, and an accurate picture of Salem, Massachusetts, a century after the witch trials that still haunt the community.

Book trilogies such as the one that this volume launches offer a sneaky way to get teenagers to read. Those who enjoy the first book will want to read the others. The quilt the girls are working on becomes the mechanism for tying the three books--and the three sisters--together, and their various romances tie young fans into a sense of the past.

While it doesn't rise to the level of literature, it can be a good tool for showing kids that history really doesn't have to be boring. Real people lived then too, and little sisters could be just as awful then as they are today. Love still triumphs. History can be romantic and exciting.

The next two books in the trilogy, Broken Days and The Blue Door, take readers through conflicts with Native Americans and into the early Industrial Revolution.