A Stitch in Time - Ann Rinaldi
A compelling story about sisters in 1700s Salem.
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- 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
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
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
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.
Parents and kids say



