The Sadie Rose Series

The Sadie Rose Series basically catalogs the adventures of a young girl during the pioneer days of our country. Sadie is an aggressive, rough and tumble girl. She is definitely a "tom boy". Her aggressiveness is demonstrated very early in the first book, Sadie Rose and the Daring Escape. She is found tackling an old man to the ground to prevent him from kicking a helpless dog.

To wish to save a dog from such meanness, of course, is certainly admirable, but for the author to create such a situation, and have this young girl burst upon the scene as some sort of knight in shining armor, who must straighten out the adults in the world hardly seems a healthy idea to be feeding to impressionable readers. There is little enough in this society to influence children to respect adults, and plenty to destroy that respect. If bravery was the issue, she could easily have been portrayed intervening with another young person.

This character, Sadie, is obviously the heroine of the book, and this incident is one of many such embellishments that the author adds to that image. What concerned us is what happens in the mind of the reader during such passages. In the case in point, with the situation portrayed as it is, how many young people will come away thinking that young people are just as wise as adults—adults are often in the wrong—and really brave young people forcefully contradict adults when they do not agree with what they are doing? Is this what we want our daughters to learn? Do we want them to follow the example of Sadie’s "bravery" and willingness to thwart any adult who may be "doing wrong" the way she sees it? We simply were unable to see bravery as the predominant philosophy here.

After reading only the first two books in the series, we were introduced to a number of Sadie’s traits that we found less than inspiring in a young lady. As we mentioned, she is a tomboy and an excellent shot with a rifle. Creating the impression of her heroism, she is found saving the family’s milk cow from a pack of coyotes, and also saving a little girl from an attack by a bull.

Sadie is also a girl full of anger and resentments because her mother remarried after her pa’s death. She is often jealous of her sisters. She is disobedient, often thinks mean thoughts, and often voices her mean spirit to her sisters and brother. She disobeys and then lies to cover it up. This disobedience is finally dealt with at the end of the story, but by this time the unhealthy impression created by Sadie’s attitudes and actions, far outweighs this little bit offered to make it all right. It is simply too little, too late. The damage is already done and is likely irreversible.

Mrs. Stahl has a definite proclivity for adding little sensual details which are not only unnecessary to the story, but are not proper for children’s reading material—if any reading material. One example would be describing how one person intimately looks and smells to another. She sometimes goes well beyond the bounds of propriety. For example, in book 2, Sadie Rose and the Cottonwood Creek Orphan, page 29, we find, "Jewel leaned against her wagon and folded her strong arms over her sagging breasts." Is this necessary? Is it proper in a child’s book? Does it support the story line in any way? Wouldn’t it be sufficient to say, "she folded her arms"?

On page 118 in the same book, we also find "The braids of her nutmeg-brown hair hung down to her small breasts. Wind pressed her flowered dress against her slight body." We are finding body parts being mentioned in children’s books, and with definite sexual overtones. How can we be expected to accept this as Christian literature? When an author points out the muscles rippling underneath a man’s shirt or his well-fitting jeans, or the smell of his sweat, is this really the kind of literature that will bring our children to a closer walk with God? When the young minds of our children should be clean and pure, do we want to teach them to notice the size of one’s breasts and the tightness of one’s jeans?

It would seem that the flesh and the devil are temptation enough for our young people, without promoting wildness and recklessness as heroism, and sensuality as an acceptable part of a Christian’s thought patterns.

But there is more. For those of you who would prefer that your daughters grow up to be feminine rather than masculine, you will find no help in these books. We hear little of Sadie doing feminine things. She is not a heroine because she can bake or tend to the children, she is a heroine for her daring escapades. However, her tomboyishness is not the only problem in this area.

We find a very subtle example of what we mean on page 86 of book 2. An orphan is sharing her sad story, "From the time he’d arrived from England he’d worked for the same farmer, and he’d never had a place of his own. He said it wasn’t right for a man not to have land. He said a man should have land to pass to his sons. I guess his daughters didn’t count." Just exactly what does this sentence mean? "His daughters didn’t count," —Hmm. What is the author trying to teach the reader here?—for we must remember this author’s target audience for this book is that of young, impressionable readers.

It smacks of that old feminist ruse that women always receive unfair treatment at the hands of men. The truth is, daughters married other men’s sons and inherited the inheritance of those sons with them. A daughter did not worry about inheriting her father’s land, because her dream was to move to her husband’s land, which was God’s plan, and should be a daughter’s dream today, because God has made no revisions to His plan yet. Of course, the author conveniently left out how things should be, and how a young girl should be thinking, and we can hardly think that the author would expect that young readers would realize them on their own.

In closing, we would not recommend these books though they do have a Christian facade. Yes, the family unit is present, and the Bible is even included, but the general meanness and bad behavior of Sadie, the attention to sensuality, and the feminist attitudes portrayed in these books do not seem conducive to Christian growth.