Sarah with an H

by Hadley Irwin

Book Overview

Sarah and her family, the first Jewish people to move into a small town in Iowa, are received warmly at first, but things take a turn for the worst as Sarah finds herself a victim of her classmate's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0689809492
• ISBN13: 9780689809491
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

I Hardly Ever Give 5 Stars

In this book, a Chicago teen moves to a small Iowa town and encounters large and small measures of hostility because she is Jewish. The fact that Sarah ("with an "H") Irvine is attractive, intelligent, and athletically gifted does not endear her to classmates either, except with a couple of the town's choice young men. When her parents move into the town patriarch's noble house and open a five and dime store, town residents seem to withhold judgment until they become successful. Then the Irvines become objects of cutting remarks and general small-minded ignorance. This story is a lesson in how throwaway comments can devastate, or strengthen, their subjects. The first person narrator is Marti, Sarah's ambivalent classmate who is assigned to escort Sarah around the school her first day. Through Marti's eyes we see how Sarah is embraced by a couple of town librarians (there are never bad librarians in children's literature!), accepted by the hunkiest guy and his sidekick, and disregarded by almost everyone else. Through it all Sarah maintains her smile and a positive attitude, though when someone paints a swastika on her new car, the attitude slips a little. Marti's best friend, Muffie, is a picture of stupidity. Muffie's jealousy and hatred of Sarah due to the hot Jason's wandering attention is well described. Her comments regarding Sarah are always about `those people', as in "They don't believe in Christmas! They have something called Canoeka or something like that. It's Indian, I think." The reader wants to urge Marti to wake up to reality and dump Muffie for Sarah, the better friend. The closest Marti comes is to observe that "I wondered if we were friends because we liked each other or because we'd known each other all our lives. Mostly, I guess, it was just comfortable..." Just when you think you know where the book is headed (the dawn of understanding how Sarah and her family are ordinary people) the last couple pages throw in a big whammy. The ending separates and elevates this story from all the other feel good juvenile literature out there. A true-to-life ambiguity leaves you pondering. Even without the surprise ending, this was an unusually engaging story. I anticipated reading on when I had to stop, as with a really good adult book.

Sarah with an H read by: Amber R

This book has a least three good messages that it teachs you. I like this book because people don't get along but, then they learn that everyone is diffrent. I think it is sad how every one dislikes the ivrines just becsue they are Jewish. This book teaches kids that everyone is diffrent we shouldn't judge them if we don't know them. We should not even judge them if we do kmow them. Everyone thinks tha Sarah is trying to be better than them, but she came from Chacgio and learned a lot more stuff there. People who do not understand somethings in life should read this book.

Sarah with an H

Sarah with an H To start out my saying I rate this book * * * * * five stars because of all that it teaches you and how great it is. I like it because of that it teaches you that you should not treat new people the way that they did in the beginning of the book because Sarah was new and Jewish. I think you should open up to if they are new because they have no friends yet. It was really good because when the big deal of the story was when the dolls were stolen, how every one made a big deal over them it was a good part of the book. Well I have not read any other books by this author so it was a different style for me. It was very interesting because I did not know his style. Back to why I like the book it had a lot of different things like you did not know what was going to happen next. It was also good because they could be talking about something, then they could talk about something else. Well I don't have much else to say about the book. The only thing that is left is the ending and I am not going to tell about the end because then you might not buy the book. That would be bad for the store. That is what I think about the book. IT WAS GREAT!

This was a very good book, but it got redundant.

"Sarah with an H" is a very good book but it got sort of redundant at times. The basketball parts in this book were very cool. It was very redundant in that a lot of the basketball parts were the same. There was a lot about basketball and a lot of personal issues which made this book the best of both worlds. Overall this was a very good book and I would definitely recommend it. I learned a lot about discrimination, about how it may not seem to be a big deal to you, but it may be toward the person that you are discriminating.