The Truth About Sparrows (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) [Hardcover]

Marian Hale (Author)

Book Description

Series: Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards) | Publication Date: August 12, 2004

"The Wynns are an unforgettable family. The details of their struggle to survive the Great Depression will linger long after the last page has been read."-Ann M. Martin, winner of the Newbery Honor for A Corner of the Universe

A stunning debut novel about
the true meaning of home

Sadie Wynn doesn't want a new life; her old one suits her just fine. But times are hard in drought-plagued Missouri, and Daddy thinks they'll be better off in Texas. Sadie hates this strange new place, where even children must work at the cannery to help make ends meet and people are rude to her disabled father.

Yet when trouble comes, it is the kindness of these new neighbors that helps the family make it through. And no one helps more than Dollie, a red-headed chatterbox of a girl who just might become a good friend-if Sadie gives her half a chance.

 

The Truth About Sparrows is a 2005 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-7–Sadie's father is a terrific mechanic and a creative carpenter who can do just about anything except make a living in Dust Bowl Missouri. Resentful about leaving her home, her friend Wilma, and the beautiful table he made that eventually was to have been hers, the 12-year-old is further angered when strangers stare at her dad's polio-withered legs. Relocating to coastal Texas where the fishing industry offers opportunity, the family obtains a one-room tar-paper shack. Promised letters from Wilma fail to arrive, a homeless man living in a cardboard box disappears, and a snobbish town girl constantly humiliates Sadie, causing her to snap when the overly talkative Dollie, with whom she has a budding friendship, tries to console her. The loss of this relationship and a crisis involving the newborn sister Sadie helps deliver cause her to reevaluate what is important. Notwithstanding the myriad challenges to survival, this story has a positive tone. Sadie's father may be down, but he is far from out. Her mom may be keeping house in a tent, but she does so efficiently while cheerfully reminding Sadie that "who you are inside always shows." Best of all, there are true friends willing to be supportive, if only the protagonist would see through her unhappiness. While Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Cat Running (Delacorte, 1994) views the Great Depression through the eyes of the merchant class, Hale highlights the working poor. Rich with social history, this first novel is informative, enjoyable, and evocative.–Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 5-8. "I'd lost more than just a home and a best friend . . . I'd lost a piece of me that I might never find again." Twelve-year-old Sadie is heartbroken when her family, forced by drought and the Depression, leaves their Missouri home for Texas, where Sadie's father hopes to try fishing. The conditions en route are difficult. The family camps, picks cotton ("mean, hot work"), and bathes in cattle troughs before finally settling in a small fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico. In her debut novel, Hale writes a deeply affecting story that, through one family's struggle, brings close the realities of life in the depressed 1930s. Although Sadie's capable, loving parents are a bit too perfect, particularly her crippled father, Hale's evocative, sure prose, in Sadie's colloquial voice, brings alive the setting and the family's survival challenges with cinematic detail that's reminiscent of the Little House books. Sadie emerges as an endearing, complex character who rages against her displacement, even as she sees that other families are much worse off than her own. An excellent choice for class discussion, this captures the difficult specifics of an era, while asking larger questions about what it means to leave a life behind and start again. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); First Edition edition (August 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805075844
• ISBN-13: 978-0805075847
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,666,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A touching and satisfying story, even for adult readers, September 19, 2004

By 

Deborah "Constant Reader" (Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Truth About Sparrows (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) (Hardcover)

From the opening pages of this book, twelve-year-old Sadie draws us into the world of a family fighting to survive during the Depression. When Sadie's father decides to move the family from Missouri to Texas to find work, Sadie is angry over leaving her home and best friend behind. She's determined to find a way back to her home, and promises her best friend that she won't forget her or make anyone else her best friend. Life on the road is challenging for Sadie's family. Her father's physical disabilities are woven seamlessly and compassionately into the story. We learn much about Sadie by seeing her brothers, sisters, parents, and strangers they meet on the road through her eyes. Sadie is a likeable character and her ambivalent feelings of love and resentment toward her family draw the reader into her world. Sadie takes steps toward independence by finding work in the local shrimp cannery and showing an interest in a lonely man, but her life takes many surprising turns and she is forced to change and grow as she deals with new friends and tests of her loyalties, poverty, a hurricane, and the unexpected arrival of a new baby.

I really enjoyed this book. Sadie is a strong character with a strong narrative voice, reminiscent of another Texas writer of the past, Loula Grace Erdman. The reader learns the realities of life for migrants who lived on the Texas coast during the Depression (a story I'd never heard before) but history is woven into the story in a way that seems natural and the details provided are all integral to the plot. Readers in 4th through 6th grades will find the story intriguing and Sadie an interesting character who will be real to them. But I bought this book for myself as an adult reader and found myself caught up in the story as completely as any child reader. I noticed this is a first novel for the author - I'm hoping she'll write more books and I know I'll be looking for them. (I'm even hoping for another story about Sadie and her family.)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sydney's Opinion, October 25, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Truth About Sparrows (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) (Hardcover)

The Truth About Sparrows is a wonderful book. It takes place in the 1930s, which is generally the time the Great Depression occured. There is a young girl named Sadie Wynn. She originally lived in Missouri, but her father lost his job and she and her family were forced to move to Texas. Sadie wants to stay, but she has no choice. When they arrive in Texas, there family earns money by picking cotton. The Wynns meet the Gillems, a friendly family that Sadie later learns is in the same predicament as they are. Sadie has a hard time becoming good friends with Dollie Gillem, because she had made a promise to Wilma, a friend from Missouri, that the two would always be best friends. She soon begins to give in to her new surroundings and make friends. Texas is somewhat difficult for her because it's SO much different than Missouri. One day, she sees a mysterious man on the seawall, who she nicknames Mr. Sparrow. Every now and then, Sadie sort of checks up on him to make sure he's doing okay. A little while later, Sadie makes a pretty big mistake. Sadie yells at Dollie and says that she doesn't deserve to be there and how they're so much different. She says she had better in Missouri and how she wants to go back. It sort of messes up their friendship a little. Generally speaking, this book is a great book with a wonderful story line.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Story with a Gentle Strength, September 2, 2006

By 

Kate West "teacherkat" (West Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Truth About Sparrows (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) (Hardcover)

I finished this novel last night and was entranced by the author's ability to put me right there along with Sadie and her family. Throughout my reading, I constantly thought of the stories my own mother told me of growing up in a large family during the Great Depression in Texas. Children worked alongside parents in cotton fields, mending clothing, and at shrimp canneries. I am anxious to see how receptive my 7th graders are to the story. As a teacher, I always look for books that can flow into studies in other classrooms. I believe The Truth About Sparrows is perfect for that purpose in blending language arts with social studies, and, in particular, Texas History which is taught at the seventh grade level. I've also recommended it to my 24 year old daughter for the connection to her grandmother, my mom.