Como una Alondra, Del Sol Books

Como una Alondra, Softcover, Spanish, Book, Patricia Maclachlan, 4th Grade and Up, 9788427932333, $10.99

$119.86 for Story Collection Purple Books Set, Including 20%-Off, Free Shipping, and No Sales Tax : 2 Hardcover Spanish Books and 10 Softcover Spanish Books

My mother, Sarah,
doesn't love the prairie.
She tries, but she can't help
remembering what she knew first.

Sarah came to the prairie from Maine to marry Papa. But that summer, a drought turned the land dry and brown. Fires swept across the fields and coyotes came to the well in search of water. so Sarah took Anna and Caleb back east, where they would be safe. Papa stayed behind. He would not leave his land. Maine was beautiful, but anna missed home, and Papa. And as the weeks went by, she began to wonder what would happen if the rains never came. Would she and Caleb and Sarah and Papa ever be a family again? When Sarah came to the prairie, Anna and her brother Caleb worried that she would not stay and be their new mother. But Sarah fell in love with Caleb and Anna, and with their father, Jacob. Together they became a family. Jacob is a man of the land but for Sarah, the prairie isn't yet her home. So when a drought threatens to devastate their way of life, Jacob must save the farm. But the children go back to the home Sarah knew first, Maine, where there is family and an ocean. But will they ever be a family again on the prairie?

Booklist : Gr. 4-6. This successful sequel to Sarah Plain and Tall (1985), which was recently televised, has enough dramatic tension and character development to satisfy devoted fans of the first book. Mail-order bride Sarah goes back east with children Anna and Caleb, leaving husband Jacob, whose name is "written in the land," to deal with their drought-ridden farm. Sarah's home in Maine makes a favorable impression on the children, but they miss their father and fear they will never return to the prairie. Finally, Jacob comes to fetch them home: "Papa looked at Sarah. `It rained,' he said. `I never thought you'd come,' whispered Sarah. `It rained,' said Papa again, his voice so soft it could have been the wind I heard." MacLachlan packs a lot into this spare tale and never diverges from the child's point of view, even when showing adult behavior. The happy result is emotional impact without cloying sentimentality.

Kirkus Reviews : The eagerly awaited sequel to Sarah, Plain and Tall, which has already appeared on TV with a script by MacLachlan. Papa and Sarah are now married, but a drought intrudes on the family's new happiness. They struggle to haul water, watch their discouraged neighbors depart, then lose their barn to a prairie fire. Determined to hang on, Papa stays behind to rebuild while Sarah (pregnant, downhearted, and longing for her birthplace) takes the children back to Maine to visit. The coast's different beauty fascinates the children, but they're homesick--and so is Sarah; but in time the rains return out west, and Papa comes to bring them home. As sequel and companion to the film, this does well enough; MacLachlan's prose is dependably graceful and evocative. Still, it's a disappointment: she has little that's new to say about these beloved characters, and for once she's written a book that isn't particularly innovative or insightful; like other film-first fiction, it consists of dialogue, visual descriptions, and scenes echoing their earlier incarnation, while logic is elided for the drama of the moment (How could Papa rebuild the barn alone? What did he do about water for the stock, once the creek was dry?). Not outstanding, but amiable; fans will rejoice, and there'll be no trouble selling the first printing of 50,000. (Fiction. 8-12).