The Braid

Frost, Helen. 2006. The Braid.

Set in Scotland and Canada in the nineteenth century, The Braid tells through a series of poems the story of two sisters separated by an ocean but still fiercely devoted to one another. Jeannie narrates the poems told from Canada, and Sarah narrates the poems told from Scotland. How did the sisters become separated? The family was living in Scotland when their landlord forced them off the land and gave them a deadline. The grandmother refused to go with the rest of the family to Canada. She wanted to return to the village where she grew up. One sister, Sarah, didn't want to be separated from her grandmother and didn't like the idea of her being alone. She was also, of course, rather attached to the land herself. So when the day comes for the family to depart, Sarah disappears in the middle of the night leaving in the bed she shared with her sister Jeannie a braid of her hair. Filled with emotion and heartache, each sister tells her own story, yet their stories connect in some ways as the reader discovers as the plot unfolds...

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