The Braid - Softcover

Frost, Helen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374300712 ISBN 13: 9780374300715

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr), 2006

Synopsis

Two sisters, Jeannie and Sarah, tell their separate yet tightly interwoven stories in alternating narrative poems. Each sister - Jeannie, who leaves Scotland during the Highland Clearances with her father, mother, and the younger children, and Sarah, who hides so she can stay behind with her grandmother - carries a length of the other's hair braided with her own. The braid binds them together when they are worlds apart and reminds them of who they used to be before they were evicted from the Western Isles, where their family had lived for many generations.

The award-winning poet Helen Frost eloquently twists strand over strand of language, braiding the words at the edges of the poems to bring new poetic forms to life while intertwining the destinies of two young girls and the people who cross their paths in this unforgettable novel. An author's note describes the inventive poetic form in detail.

The Braid is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

About this title

Review:

"* The braid is both powerful fact and stirring metaphor... the book will inspire students and teachers to go back and study how the taut poetic lines manage to contain the powerful feelings." --Starred, Booklist"

About the Author:

Helen Frost is the author of several books for young people, including Hidden, Diamond Willow, Salt, Crossing Stones, Room 214: A Year in Poems, and Keesha's House, which was a Michael L. Printz Honor Book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0374300712
• ISBN 13: 9780374300715
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 114