Even as teenager Alice Sanborn begins to question the boundaries of
life in her Vermont village of North Upton, her boldest actions come
from taking seriously the "rules of life" she's grown up with:
education, friendship, moral imperatives like correcting evil, and of
course working together to make life reasonably comfortable through four
seasons. Vermont winter is a force to reckon with! Consider Alice's
experience as she rides up Sheffield Heights in a March blizzard:
As the sleigh tilted sideways, I
found my wits and scrambled out of my side of it, struggling to pull downward
and keep it from completely capsizing. Sarah and Jerushah clung to the back of
it, crying out.
So
much noise and commotion—perhaps it helped to keep the invisible animal in
front of us from coming closer. Its growl rose in volume, however, and the
horse reared onto its hind legs. Solomon still clung to the bridle. I grabbed
Sarah and pulled her free from the sleigh, and Jerushah scrambled out, just
before it capsized fully into the snowbank at the left side of the road. The
horse managed to come down in a half turn, dragging the capsized sleigh back
the way we’d come. Solomon yelled and swore. One of his legs, caught in the
leather straps of the reins and harness, jerked him so hard that he let go of
the horse’s head at last and fell, yelping with pain as his shoulders struck
the roadway.
But I had eyes only for what stood
revealed in front of us, a dead lamb dangling from its jaws, and the crescendo
of its growl rising into a high-pitched threat: wild-eyed face suddenly visible
in a gap in the snowfall, legs tensed to leap, body easily three feet long and
muscular, and the long tail slashing back and forth behind it. A catamount. The
fierce and powerful beast of the mountains stared at the three of us as we
clung to each other, unable to think beyond the screams that erupted from all
of us at once.
Here are some issues to consider after reading the book:
- Would you want Alice for a friend yourself? Why or why not?
- How
different are the roles of teen boys and girls in the 1850s? In what
ways does Alice fit the expectations -- and how does she push back
against them?
- The
"Underground Railroad" is an exciting part of American history -- but
it doesn't fit well into Alice's experience in Vermont. Name three
things that show why Vermont in the 1850s had an "aboveground railroad"
for dark-skinned people traveling north.
- Readers
often groan at the amount of work Alice does, just to get through an
ordinary day. Which tasks surprised you? How has daily life changed so
that you are not doing those tasks?
- Alice,
like her neighbors in the village, sees slave-holding as a sin against
man and God. A decade after THE LONG SHADOW, a "war between brothers"
will split America around this issue. Problems that remain in today's
America would be, for Alice, part of the "wages of sin." Do you agree?
Give examples of some of these problems.
Curious
about a detail or can't decide about an issue? This Vermont author
makes book-group visits, in person, via email, and via Skype or
FaceTime. Get in touch!
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