The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs

“Sometimes extraordinary things begin in ordinary places. A fancy-dancy butterfly starts out in a plain little cocoon. A great big apple tree grows from a tiny brown speck of a seed. And the Wonders started right on our own front porch on a hot summer night I would have forgotten on the spot if it hadn’t been for what got started then and kept on going.

The novel opens with an emphasis on key thematic elements that define the protagonist’s transformation, foreshadowing Eben’s character arc. Eben embarks on a journey of discovery in his hometown that changes his perception of the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary” in life. The analogies Betty G. Birney uses to illustrate this discovery—a caterpillar turning into a butterfly and a seed growing into a tree—are also metaphors for growth, framing Eben’s transformation as itself a kind of “wonder.”

“Red Hawk, Coy, and Iron Valley all had dots on the map, but not Sassafras Springs, Missouri. We might as well have been invisible, yet there I was, sitting on the front porch with Pa and Aunt Pretty.”

The above quotation describes Eben’s emotional state early in the narrative. Eben feels “invisible” living in the small and poor community of Sassafras Springs, suggesting his estrangement from his surroundings and his sense of limitation. This reinforces Eben’s desire to travel the world and discover new places, but his character arc will see him Finding a Sense of Place in his own home.

“My mind was a million miles away when suddenly my aunt said, ‘Eben McAllister, you’ve had your nose in that book so long, I forgot what you look like! Wake up and see the world.’”

In keeping with the theme of The Importance of Imagination in Childhood, Eben has an imaginative mind. He nurtures his creative thinking through reading, as books fuel his imagination and desire to “travel” to faraway places. However, Aunt Pretty’s words suggest that Eben is so absorbed by his inner thoughts that he lacks connection to his immediate world.