MIRI AND JADE'S NEW CLOTHES

Ten-year-old sisters learn how to make clothes for their dolls in Mical and Assaf Rezoni’s illustrated children’s book.

On their tenth birthday, twins Maya and Rumi receive a pair of dolls respectively named Jade and Miri as a gift from a family friend. The two girls feel that Miri and Jade’s clothes are too old-fashioned, so they set out to make their own one-of-a-kind homemade outfits from scratch. Inspired by a class project from several years ago, Maya and Rumi acquire black silkworm eggs from the Albuquerque Zoo and feed them leaves from a mulberry tree in their front yard. Rumi is shocked to learn that harvesting silk may require boiling the worms alive in their cocoons, so the twins instead research a more humane method…that disappointingly doesn’t result in very much silk. The girls then turn to cotton, which they plant in their backyard, but it grows much too slowly. “We might turn eleven before the cotton plants [mature] into cotton fiber,” Rumi moans. However, the girls persevere, and together they are able to process enough yarn to make a sweater and a scarf for Miri. They spot their father leaving the house with a box of used clothing, which they reuse to make Miri and Jade items to go with their existing homespun pieces. The Rezonis carefully detail each step of Maya and Rumi’s operation in a thoughtful, educational manner that highlights just how hard it truly is to make cloth. While their color illustrations of the children and dolls can seem unpleasantly uncanny, the portrayal of the steps of boiling silk and a diagram detailing the stages of cotton-growing appear to be well researched. This short debut book successfully conveys a message about the importance of being environmentally conscious and reusing fabric during clothing production; the story addresses a gap in children’s narrative nonfiction in a way that enterprising young readers will likely enjoy.

An educational narrative guide to different methods of fabric production.