The Sin Eater

by Gary D. Schmidt

While living on his grandparents' farm in New Hampshire, Cole hears stories about a mysterious sin-eater which enable Cole to learn forgiveness and to connect with his ancestors. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Reprint.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Family

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Gary D. Schmidt is an American children's writer of nonfiction books and young adult novels, including two Newbery Honor books. He lives on a farm in Alto, Michigan,with his wife and six children, where he splits wood, plants gardens, writes, feeds the wild cats that drop by and wishes that sometimes the sea breeze came that far inland. He is a Professor of English at Calvin College.

Reviews

[Karina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dad was silent through meals. He used to like to talk about his music and what he was working on, but now he never spoke of it. And he never asked me what I'd been up to. Somehow there just didn't seem much for him to say with Ma gone. New Hampshire made him smaller. (PG 22)

Trigger Warnings:::: Suicide, Cancer

Dude, if you weren't depressed before reading this book you'll definitely be depressed afterwards. I actually liked the writing and the insertion of Christianity and faith within the story but it felt heavy and foreboding because right away we know Cole's mother died. Cole's father isn't coping with this very well, below well, and decides "Let's move in to the farm of your grandparents." Cole's father is obviously depressed and stops being a father.... So that's the beginning. I liked Cole and his buddies. His grandparents sounded kind and amazing. Lots of good wholesome characters.

Might be a very heavy book for a kid. I mean kids need to know life and feelings and all that but with all this mental illness going around we probably shouldn't add to it.

[Paula Soper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I also have a crush on Gary Schmidt's words.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

With an eye for humor--I had to read parts aloud--and a heart full of sorrow, Cole explores the present and past of his New Hampshire community, supported by quiet companionship and quirky characters. He spends a lot of time in graveyards. Life will get worse for him. One person will die and another will survive. Most importantly, Cole will survive. As we discover with him, life, in all its forms, strums through the trees, down the rivers, from the hearts of the people around us.

[Nancy Butts · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure how to write about this book. It’s Gary Schmidt’s first novel, and just like everything else of his I’ve read, it’s beautifully written. I love “Okay for Now” and “The Wednesday Wars” with complete abandon, and it’s true that they plumb the same well that Schmidt seems irresistibly drawn to—how in the midst of life, we are in death. Joy and sorrow, the little losses and victories of ordinary days, grief and triumph, they are all mingled together such that they can never be teased apart in his books.

He writes about life in a way that isn’t saccharine or sentimental, that doesn’t give easy answers to questions, and I like that a great deal. But I think I can’t take it as a steady diet, perhaps because this is life as I live it—as we all live it—and every once in a while, I want books to be my escape, not to hold my head down in it.

So maybe today simply wasn’t a good day for me to be reading this particular story about a young boy whose mother dies of cancer and whose father is mired in grief, no matter how lyrically Schmidt wrote about the Norman Rockwell town in New Hampshire where they live.

And I miss the lively voice of the boys “Okay for Now” and “The Wednesday Wars.” They sounded like real boys to me, whereas the young narrator of this book sounded older, slower—perhaps because he was so sad?

This is a superbly-written, powerful, moving book—that failed to move me. I forced myself to finish it, and I skimmed many pages at that. But the fault may be mine, not Schmidt’s. He is one of the best children’s writers of our generation.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do not generally gravitate towards coming of age stories. I will read them far and between and I knew this book was largely that, and I was in the mood for it. Or so I thought. What it really boils down to is the fact that yes it is coming of age but 80% of this story is literally farm hand chores and daily mundane activities. Now again I found this nice, I was open to this and learned things a person would never know unless they grew up on a farm. The problem is it never ends, this book is only 184 pages and it was around page 70-80 that I realized there is nothing here except a day to day walkthrough of life on the farm. Again not a problem if it hadn't been the entire thing, as for the Sin Eater....I feel like that character was used to get the book off the shelves. Because that's how it was for me, I was at a thrift store which had a little book collection area and I saw this on the shelf and God knows how long it had been there and I saw it and having known about Sin Eaters before this story I was very interested because it is a topic that you will most likely never see in a book. Now as I said I had already had a fair knowledge of Sin Eaters and perhaps I was naive in thinking we would get into more deeply Sin Eating itself seeming as this is a story designed for pre teens and young adults. I just wish there had been more mystery around the character, so I give it 2 stars not because I hated it. I had no expectations, and when you have that you cannot be disappointed, which is a good outlook to have on reading anything. Now I loved the farm animals and the food, good Lord the food in here will probably make your stomach growl and bombard you with thoughts of heading to the kitchen. As a devout lover of apple pie this story made me a little crazy at times with the endless pages of the grandmother baking pies and fussing over recipes (which I wish we could have learned). So that's really it, there isn't much to say. It did make me reminisce about my own grandfather, however the grandfather in here was nothing like my grandfather. Now I'm just rambling, okay I'm shutting up now. Thank you for reading.

[Karla Renee Goforth Abreu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had confiscated this book out of a pile of cast-offs from a family member. I kept it around intending to read it but seem to find it easier to read books on my tablet ( though I like hard copy books). Today, the electricity was off for about ten hours after a storm, and the tablet low on battery. Though I usually read at night, this book captured my interest in late afternoon. It is a moving tale.
Cole, the protagonist, is about 12 years old and has lost his mother to cancer. Previous to this tragedy, Cole and his parents lived a life full of memorable moments, somewhat idyllic. Cole's father finds the loss of his wife unbearable, to the point of alienating Cole. Within two years, they move from Philadelphia to the grandparent's farm in extremely rural New Hampshire. It is here that Cole learns of the stories of his ancestry and the sin eater.
This is not only a coming of age story, it portrays the extreme value of family and friends, forgiveness, grace and hope. It is rich in symbolism. There are humorous references to to church and Scripture that a reader familiar with such will pick up on. There are more serious symbolic references, and, it seems the legends are metaphorical. This is not a work of Christian fiction, despite some of the themes.
For me, there was one profound conversation between the grandfather and the minister after a shocking and horrible event took place. The grandfather angrily asks Pastor Hurd "where is God in all of this? " After a pause, the pastor answers "God is in the mourning. " Profound. Love and grief are partners, actually.
This partial synopsis leaves the impression that the book is all serious. This is not the case. The developed characters and the small town life lend themselves to some lighthearted fare, in addition to the weightier aspects.
Stories are woven into our lives. They connect and ground us. They teach us. This book emphasizes the importance of our stories.

[Aaron Radford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like other Schmidt novels, it stars a young man who is facing real-life dramatic problems. Cole, the main character, mother has just died. She was diagnosed with cancer, and her fate was sealed. A few months after the death of his mother, he and his widowed father move in with his maternal grandparents: the Emersons. Just 6 months after moving, on Christmas Eve, his father takes his life by shooting himself. Cole is now alone. Just like other Schmidt novels, Cole is able to use stories (in this case the stories of his grandparents) to help him overcome his life challenges.

I liked this book quite a lot. This is the third Schmidt book I've read. To be honest, I'm a little tired of Schmidt's same plot line; but the truth is, there are teens who struggle with events like this. I feel like he must have had a rough childhood, and that he must have used literature and writing to help him deal with his problems. This book was good....but a little repetitive and very similar to his other works.

Content: suicide. death. violence. thematic material.

[Gabrielle Schwabauer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not expecting to be so moved.

Also, if a book were ever to make me excited about simple country living . . . this is it.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Schmidt is such a good author. I have read nearly all his books now, and went back to this early one of his, about a boy, Cole, who goes to live with his grandparents after the death of his mother. His father comes too but is suffering from depression. The grand parents live on a farm in rural New Hampshire, descended from the first settlers there.

We learn of the history of the "sin eater" and other of the early families at the time of the American civil war. Cole uncovers the story slowly through listening to stories and then through old family Bibles and other research sources. At the same time there is the human story of what is happening around him, told with the rich and compassionate narrative that have become Schmidt's hallmark.

Another hallmark of Schmidt is recycling of names, and intertwining of his stories, and it is clear that this habit of his goes all the way back to this book, with Pastor Hurd among others.

The ending of this book is emotionally powerful, and left me with the impression it was all very well done. It is perhaps not his best book, but it is still definitely an excellent one, and recommended.

[Kyra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cole Hallet is a young boy who moved to Albion, New Hampshire, to live with his grandparents following his mom's death. After settling in, he finds that farm work and fishing are both very good distractions for him, but is especially intrigued by stories about the legendary Sin Eater. The Sin Eater is a novel about Cole and how he learns that stories often carry more value than one might expect. I’ll admit, I was confused for the first half of the book. There was no developed theme or plot, and though it was written as if the reader is walking alongside the characters as they adjust to their new lifestyle, it doesn’t add much to the story other than the basics of settling in. It took me a long time to figure out that stories were supposed to be the dominant theme, because it was very vague and was never mentioned directly until the end of the book. Plot wise, this book was very slow up until the last few chapters, but the writing style is very neat and does a fantastic job of describing how the characters are feeling, what the environment is like, and what events are taking place. I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a calm, slow paced, slice of life story.

[Danielle Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gary Schmidt is one of my favorite authors. This book showcases his beautiful writing as usual, but I will say it did seem like it would not be a good book for those who are younger. It dealt with such sorrow and deeper themes as he usually does, but it seemed as if in this his first book that he was not capable yet of balancing it with the same underlying hope and breaks with lightheartedness as his other books evoke. It was there, but faint, which in turn I think made the book a little boring as well for younger people.

[Mark VanderWerf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schmidt’s first novel hits many themes he picks up in his other books — grief, forgiveness, compassion, etc — but with a bit less playfulness than his later works (this one hit hard). The Sin Eater, however, seems to have clear religious themes throughout.

“No story ever repeats, Cole,” said Grandpa.
“Then why bother remembering any of them?”
Grandpa looked right at me. “So we can know who we are. So we can share one another’s lives, and somehow carry one another’s lives. So we know how to live.”
“Or how not to live,” I said softly… (159)

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. It was hard to get a handle on what exactly this book was. There were light-hearted moments, but more dark, heavy moments. The legend of the Sin Eater kind of petered out for me at the end. Also, trigger warnings for death of a parent and suicide. It was a lot for a middle grade book. Gary D. Schmidt's writing is impeccably beautiful as always, but I'm glad to be leaving this one and moving on to the next.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

fter Cole's mother dies, he and his father go to live with his mother's parents in tiny Albion, New Hampshire. The Emersons make it easier for Cole to cope -- but he is helpless in the face of his father's depression. So Cole turns to Albion itself, and its history. Can the old stories help him handle the present?

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sad, but all is not lost.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing my journey through Gary D. Schmidt's complete works. Was interesting to see that this, one of his first novels, has a lot of themes (loss, grief, memory) and characters (the coach, the friends, the main character) that are later and better developed into his other novels. I especially feel like the characters and themes of this were reworked to their full potential in Orbiting Jupiter, Jupiter Rising, and What Came From the Stars - super interesting to see Schmidt as a novelist progress and improve with time.

[Miguel carrillo]

Miguel Carrillo
Period 6
05-16-16

Book Final review
I like to write a brief summary of my book the Sin Eater this book is written by Gary D. Schmidt it’s a fiction book and this book is recommended for everyone in my opinion because it teaches you lessons about life. This book was published on the year 2003 in New York what this book is about it’s about a kid whose name is Joe and he lost his family and had to face life by himself. The life of Joe changed in a dramatically way because he first lost his mother and then his father. After the death of his mother JOe and his father decided that they needed to look somewhere alse to live because they were very stressful thinking about this mother and the memories they had together. So they decided to move to his grandparents house in New Hamsphire New york when they got there joe and his dad live there for a while however six months later Joe’s father committed suicide to himself taking his life away and living joe facing life by himself even though he had his grandparents Joe didn’t really wanted to be part of them. He wanted to do his life himself and live alone because to him it was no meaning of living anymore because he had lost his family and he was all mean to himself for example he didn’t had feelings towards anything or anyone. Do I recommend this book to people well in my opinion I think is very good book and yes I will want people to read this book because I know for a fact that there is a lot of people who had passed or are passing for the sametime joe passed in the book. This book shows a lot of examples that could teach people about life like I would not like people to do the same or feel the same thing that Joe felt when he lost his family If people read this book i believe that they are going to have more clue about what to do if they are to face the same thing Joe had to face another thing is the this book shows more examples of what that people who pass for this feel for like example when Joe didn’t wanted to deal with anyone or he didn’t had feelings for anyone. I think that if people read the whole book they will understand that if they feel like Joe felt in the book they are going to do wrong Joe felt wrong as well but however when he realized that he was doing wrong by hating who he was is wrong do i believe this will teach people that is not the best choice to do. This are some of the pros and cons of the book the sin eater it’s a very interested book to read and for people that like to read about stories like this I believe it will be a good book to read for this people because it shows how hard life hit’s and what it does to people.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Gary Schmidt's first book. I picked it up for the title as I have read Francine River's novel THE LAST SIN EATER. It is one of my favorite books. I have read it two times and watched the movie as many.

This book was such a moving story about a young boy who returned to the New Hampshire farm where his deceased mother grew up. He returns with his father who is in a major depression. The boy learns of the sin eater from stories told by his grandfather and those in the community. This story touched my heart as the boy basks in the love of his grandparents while at the same time watches his father slip further and further away. Here he gets in touch with his family history as the stories unfold.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story was a surprising pleasant read at Christmas time. Grief is a weird and powerful thing, this story tells it well with the passing of Cole's mother to cancer and then after almost a year living with his grandparents, his father to suicide. The small New Hampshire town is full of stories and history that tell that death and the pain that comes with it is nothing new. Grandma and Grandpa were my favorite characters, with their lesson of tolerance for spouses, resilience in hard times, with the right amount of stubborness and humor. Great read.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot moves somewhat slowly but beautifully. The language, especially the description is poetic and calming. It establishes a timeless setting that many have forgotten, which adds to the potency of the message regarding forgotten story. I thought the actual plot was a little predictable and ho-hum until the last few paragraphs when it all came together for me. That's when this book earned another star.

[Melanie Jacobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a huge Gary Schmidt fan, but this wasn't my favorite. His books often move slow, building to a great reward, but this moved slower than usual. I was also really frustrated with the main character's father. But that's a personal thing. From a writing point of view, yeah, slow. But nothing he does is bad, just varying degrees of enjoyable.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow...this book really makes me want to ask Gary Schmidt why his books always have such sadness in them. I really enjoyed this book, the characters were intriguing and fun to get to know. The end leaves you sad and thinking.

[Adaire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a quick read, but it took me a while to get into it. It was a nice yet sad story of a boy who discovers his hertitage.

One thing I really like about this author is how descriptive he is. He has a unique was of painting a picture in your mind of what he is describing.

[Dawn Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to get through interlibrary loan as our library system didn't own a copy. I think it was his first book (or at least one of his earliest) .... good story, not real groundbreaking as far as subject matter or tone. I found it interesting to see how Schmidt's writing has progressed.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of slow at the beginning but picked up in the middle. I expected more suspense and action for some reason. The descriptions of the farm were realistic and well-done. It was a sobering story focusing on family, friendship, and the value/comfort of memories and family history.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this book on CD. I don't think I would have continued to read it had that been my only option. This is a story about an unfortunate boy's adventures. I enjoyed that. The twist with the sin eater seemed quite contrived to me.

[Robbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

SO SAD!!! This book has a moving final scene, but this whole story is sad. And can I just say suicide is the most selfish anyone can ever do!

WARNING: Death galore, Spiritual ending, pagan ideas and all that jazz is in this book so if you can't handle it read it anyway.

[Tra-Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I finished the book, I put it aside and said, "Well, that's it."
"How was it?"
"Sad."
"Oh, more tragedy?"
"No, just...it was a story."
"Oh, an emotional rollercoaster?"
"No. You don't understand. It wasn't 'happy' or 'sad'; it was a story."

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This book was Schmidt's first novel. It is a reminder of why I enjoy his writing. His writing appeals to all the senses.

See full review on my blog.
http://buildinglifelongreaders.blogsp...

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished listening to the audio version of this book. I really enjoyed listening to it.