Yolen notes a strong relationship between The Gift of Sarah Barker and her young adult fantasy, Dragon's Blood (1982). Both are set in farming communities which rigidly separate men and women and assign them traditional roles. A central motif of the Big Dragon barn in Dragon's Blood comes from a description in The Gift of Sarah Barker. In both novels, young people fall in love without fully understanding the consequences. Yolen built The Gift of Sarah Barker upon her children's nonfiction book Simple Gifts, which treats the lives of Mother Ann Lee and various Shaker leaders, as well as the rituals and origins of the group.

Insofar as The Gift of Sarah Barker concerns a specially ordered community, it relates to the adult novel Sister Light, Sister Dark (1988) which describes a community of women. Insofar as the Shakers shun the realities of Worldly life, The Gift of...