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The Braid

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Jeannie and Sarah are teenage sisters living on the Isle of Barra in Scotland in 1850. It is a time that has come to be known as the Highland Clearances when landlords, choosing to raise sheep on the lands instead of renting them out, forced thousands of people to leave their homes. The family plans to sail to Canada. The night before they leave, Jeannie and Sarah braid their hair together, sleeping with their heads touching. But in the morning, Sarah is gone. She has cut the sisters' braid and left half in Jeannie's hand.

Jeannie, her parents and three small siblings sail off, as Jeannie holds the braid and cries for her sister. Sarah has decided to travel with her grandmother back to her grandmother's home on the tiny rugged island of Mingulay. When Murdo Campbell, a young fisherman, sails them to their new home, Sarah feels an emotional attraction to the calm, kind man.

Meanwhile, on the crowded ship traveling to Canada, Jeannie finds her fellow passengers irritable, hungry, thirsty and sick. The sleeping area below deck stinks. Jeannie is heartsick missing Sarah, but she is distracted when her little sister develops a fever. A passenger has died, and the family knows how serious an illness can be.

On Mingulay, Sarah dreams of and worries about Jeannie and her family, but she also enjoys getting to know her extended family. She loves collecting seabird eggs from the cliffs and snaring the birds she and her grandmother eat. She also finds herself waking up at night thinking of Murdo Campbell. Little does she know what lies in their combined future: passion, shame and sorrow --- but also hope.

Jeannie and her family endure a horrendous crossing. As so many of the passengers do, they suffer unbearable losses. When they land, they decide to travel to Cape Breton, hoping to find other travelers from home. Along the way, Jeannie is hungry, filthy and sad, but she uncovers a prevailing strength deep inside to sustain her.

Jeannie and Sarah's stories are powerful and moving, filled with universal emotions anyone can relate to. At the end of the book, author Helen Frost explains how she structured it. The sisters relay their tales in narrative poems, which are connected with shorter poems. The short poems each honor one ingredient in the longer poems. Astonishingly, the poems are braided together in an intricate way. The short poems share first and last lines. In the sisters' poems, the last word of each line is the first word of each line in the next poem. In addition, the syllable counts have significance: the number of syllables in the lines of the sisters' poems equal their age.

These revelations were so astounding to me that I did something I've never done before: I immediately reread the entire book, both to admire the structure and to re-savor the poignant and riveting story. (Since rereading, I have been raving about it to everyone I know.) THE BRAID is now high on my "best books I have ever read" list.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)

Once again, Helen Frost has crafted a beautiful novel in verse. This story of two sisters is one that anyone descended from immigrants can appreciate.

Although the poetic form is very intricate and literary, young readers (even reluctant readers) will find the book an approachable, quick read. And even those who don't normally like historical fiction may enjoy it, since the themes in the book are timeless: sisterhood, family love, the struggle for survival, and romance versus reality.

This is one of the most "literary" books I've recently read that has the potential of attracting reluctant young adult readers. The slim volume will not intimidate, and the quick-paced, drama-filled narrative will keep them turning pages. Author Helen Frost examines pertinent issues of homelessness, poverty and teen pregnancy in her fictional account of two teenaged sisters torn apart during the Scottish Highland Clearances in 1850. Her interwoven poems between chapters help make this title a unique standout.

Buy this book. Treasure it. The words are beautiful, careful, perfect. This story of two sisters who are separated is woven so intricately, with shining threads and dark sad threads, that I know I'll need to read it many times. That said, it's also accessable, and compelling to any reader.
Readers who have enjoyed Virginia Euwer Wolff's books will find the same kind of careful poetry here. Not just prose spread out on a page, but intricate weaving of words. I also recommend Frost's other books, Keesha's House, and Diamond Willow. I'm planning to read the rest as soon as I can get them.

Teenage sisters Sarah and Jeannie MacKinnon live in the mid-nineteenth century, a time of upheaval in their native Scotland. During the Highland Clearances, families are being summarily evicted from the Western Isles, often with little or no warning, sometimes allowed to take only the clothes they wear.
When the MacKinnons are forced to leave their home, 14-year-old Jeannie accompanies her parents and three younger siblings, hoping to make a new life in Canada. But stubborn 15-year-old Sarah hides until the boat has left, then goes with her grandmother to an even smaller island, where there is no bailiff to evict them.
On their last night together, Sarah braids her own hair with her sister's, then cuts the braid in two and leaves half in the sleeping Jeannie's hand before sneaking away. "You/me/sisters/always."
The stories of the separated sisters are told in alternating short chapters as intimate as entries in a diary. The third strand of the narrative braid is provided by short "praise poems" between the chapters, each poem praising something named in the narrative strands: boats, dreams, feather, stones, stars. "When clouds part and the night sky clears, / stars are fixed points for travelers /moving away from places fixed / in their hearts as home."
Life is not easy. When Sarah receives word her father and two of the younger children have died on the Atlantic crossing, she must grieve their loss without even the comfort of knowing which child still lives. Homeless and penniless in the New World, Jeannie and her mother search unsuccessfully for kinfolk who moved there more than twenty years earlier.
Each sister cherishes her half of the braid, gathering strength from knowing that she is not alone in spirit. The praise poems are sincere. "Such beauty in the world, such strength / in all the creatures. Each mussel / somehow finds a rock to cling to, / opening when washed by water, / closing when the tide goes out."
The story of each girl's adventures is so compelling that the reader at first may not realize the narratives, too, are poems. In an extraordinary feat of literature, author Helen Frost has braided the three strands of the book in a poetic pattern as intricate and as strong as a Celtic knot. The Braid is a book to be experienced for its drama, savored for its beauty, and cherished for its affirmation of hope and goodness in life.

Helen Frost's The Braid takes the reader on a simple family journey across the Atlantic Ocean to the strange land of Canada's Cape Breton in the Mid-1800s, while at the same time allowing us to follow the delicate yarn that stretches across the sea back to Scotland and Mingulay where the rest of the family remains. This book served three purposes for me: first, my Word Nerd partner, Jaimi, was inspired by this book to start her own writing; second, it fulfills the Irresistible Review challenge because I saw the book on two separate blogging sites ages ago---Here and Here; thirdly, it was very entertaining.

It was such an easy read, it only took me two short 15-minute Metro rides. I also didn't even notice the intricacy of the book, its narrative poems, and its praise poems. Frost's explanation of how the poems are interwoven together surprised me, perhaps because I was not looking for it or because it was so well done that I was not jarred out of the narrative by its style.

***Spoiler Alert***

Jeannie and Sarah are close sisters, who are separated by the Atlantic Ocean when Sarah makes a rash decision to hide away while the rest of the family boards a boat for Canada. Sarah stays behind in Scotland with her grandmother, while Jeannie boards the boat with her other sisters, brother, and parents.

Jeannie must step up to the plate in the New World and help provide for her family by begging strangers for food and shelter. She finds strength within herself. Sarah meanwhile succumbs to her emotional weakness, but turns out to be a positive for her. Jeannie, on the other hand, then transitions from an "adult" back to her childlike self.

***End Spoiler Alert***

Helen Frost is a very creative author and this book is a simple story told in a unique way. I would love to recommend this to anyone who likes Young Adult novels and to those who just want a breath of fresh air.

The Braid's Travel

Two sisters braid their hair together, cut it off and the hair travels from Scotland to Cape Breton and back. Helen Frost writes a mixture of poems and stories to tell us about a family who had to go to another country because of famine.
The poems are small stories about the bigger stories and they are connected to the next poem by the last line.
The Braid is set in both Canada and Scotland in 1850. I think that people who like history should read this; they might like it. Also, English language learners could read this too, because the poems and stories are short and very understandable.
The journey the family makes, being forced out of their home and not having many food was similar to Night, but it was different because of the religious beliefs.