Sarah, Plain and Tall Books in Order

At the center of the Sarah, Plain and Tall series is a question that sounds simple and turns out not to be simple at all: what makes a home? The first book begins when Jacob Witting, a widowed farmer on the prairie, advertises for a wife and mother for his two children, Anna and Caleb. Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton answers from Maine, bringing with her a direct manner, a love of the sea, and a homesickness she never bothers to hide.

That honesty is part of what makes the series memorable.

The opening book is told by Anna, who watches everything carefully. Caleb hopes Sarah will stay. Anna is not so sure. Sarah, meanwhile, is trying to decide whether she can build a life far from the coast she loves. MacLachlan keeps the story spare, but the feelings are large: grief for the mother the children lost, worry about being left again, and the awkward tenderness of people becoming a family one day at a time.

The later books let that family keep growing. In Skylark, drought threatens the prairie and forces Sarah, Anna, and Caleb to leave for Maine while Jacob stays behind with the land. In Caleb's Story, the point of view shifts, and Caleb takes over the job of recording the family history. By then the series is less about whether Sarah belongs and more about how families keep changing even after love is settled.

Then the focus widens again. More Perfect Than The Moon and Grandfather's Dance bring Cassie forward as an observer and storyteller. Through her eyes, the books take in babies, weddings, grandparents, old hurts, and the steady movement of time. The prairie is still there, but so is the sense that childhood is slipping into memory. These later books keep the same quiet voice while allowing the family story to stretch across generations.

Home is the big question in every book.

What readers can expect across the series is historical fiction that feels intimate rather than grand. These are not action-heavy books. The drama comes from drought, distance, work, illness, aging, and the fear that love may not be enough to hold people in place. MacLachlan writes in short, clear sentences, and she trusts small details, pencils from Maine, a dry well, a wedding dance, to carry a lot of emotion.

The series also reached a wider audience through television. Sarah, Plain and Tall was adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame film starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken, and the screen versions of Skylark and the story line that became Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End continued with the same family. Even so, the books remain the heart of it. They are quiet, deeply felt stories about making room for new people, holding on through hard seasons, and learning that home can be both the place you miss and the place you choose.