Keeping Quilt ANNOTATION
A homemade quilt ties together the lives of four generations of an immigrant Jewish family, remaining a symbol of their enduring love and faith.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"We will make a quilt to help us always remember home," Anna's mother said. "It will be like heaving the family in backhome Russia dance around us at night.
And so it was. From a basket of old clothes, Anna's babushka, Uncle Vladimir's shirt, Aunt Havalah's nightdress and an apron of Aunt Natasha's become The Keeping Quilt, passed along from mother to daughter for almost a century. For four generations the quilt is a Sabbath tablecloth, a wedding canopy, and a blanket that welcomes babies warmly into the world.
In strongly moving pictures that are as heartwarming as they are real, patricia Polacco tells the story of her own family, and the quilt that remains a symbol of their enduring love and faith.
FROM THE CRITICS
School Library Journal
(PreS - Gr. 2) Polacco's first-person voice moves her narrative forward gracefully from the time when her Great-Gramma Anna came to America during the last century to the present. Richly detailed charcoal drawings fill the pages of this beautifully conceived book. Particularly striking are the faces of the Russian Jewish immigrant families who people the pages. The only color used is in the babushka and dress of Great-Gramma Anna, which become part of a brightly hued quilt. Following that quilt through four generations is the basis of this account. Customs and fashions change, but family is constant, visually linked by the "keeping quilt.'' Children will be fascinated by the various uses to which the quilt is put, although some of those uses make one wonder how its "like-new'' shape was maintained. That stretch of the imagination is gentle, however, and does not mar the story. Readers who notice that the author and the narrator share the same name may realize that this lovely story is true; that should make it even more appealing. -- Lee Bock, Brown County Public Libraries, Green Bay, Wis.
School Library Journal
(K - Gr. 3) The changes in this revised edition of a book originally published in 1988 are subtle. The story recounts Polacco's great-grandmother's arrival in this country from Eastern Europe. Her dress and babushka become part of a quilt that has been handed down from generation to generation in the author's family. This book is special for the values it conveys, for the family traditions and the changes to them that it describes, and for the intergenerational love it portrays. Although alterations to the text are slight, eight new pages have been added, as the author traces the presence of the quilt at the birth of her own children and the death of her mother, and ends with the promise of continuing the cycle. The endpapers are enhanced with more decoration and the pages are white as opposed to cream colored, resulting in a brighter, cheerier mood. As before, only the quilt is shown in color; black-and-white pencil drawings in Polacco's distinctive, folksy style convey the drama as it unfolds. The portraits are wonderfully expressive, depicting both joy and sadness as the occasion demands. Do these revisions warrant purchase of this new edition if a collection already holds sufficient copies of the old one? Probably not. However, those libraries that do not already own multiple copies of this wonderful book will want to take this opportunity to stock their shelves. --Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York City
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