THE FIDDLE RIBBON

Lemieux (Full Worm Moon, 1994, etc.) pens an intergenerational story of two children discovering their Scottish heritage. Jimmy and Jennie have been sent to their grandparents' farm in the Canadian Maritimes to help out for the summer. Discovering Jennie's love of music, the grandfather, ``Papa,'' teaches her to play his fiddle, as his grandmother had taught him. ``Music,'' he tells her, ``is the ribbon that ties people together. It goes on and on from generation to generation and never ends.'' The tangible symbol of this connection is the faded fiddle ribbon, woven into one continuous loop, a gift that came to him with his first fiddle. Jimmy, for his part, has been learning step-dancing, and the story ends with a festive ceilidh in the barn. The looping shape of the ribbon is worked into several of the thickly textured, impressionistic paintings, reinforcing the sense of connection between the children and their once-unfamiliar grandparents. A lovely story of children learning to cherish their family traditions. The score of a traditional jig tune is appended. (Picture book. 6-9)