The relatable, touching story of an elderly matriarch who sews love into cozy quilts.
In this gentle, well-crafted picture book for young children, an elderly matriarch lovingly sews quilts for her numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren and receives an unexpected gift of love in return.
Kind and caring Great-Grandma decides to give her 35 grandchildren and great-grandchildren a gift that will remind them of her “love every night and every morning, and that will make them smile.” She sets about crafting quilted comforters for each one of them. Made with her own hands, each comforter will be “warm and soft, just like a hug.” At first, Great-Grandma plans to piece together the nearly three-dozen patchwork quilts, but with a between-the-lines poignancy that will resonate with adults, the author conveys the elderly woman’s realization of time passing: “Great-Grandma was a wise woman and she knew her hands were getting tired,” and she determines that sewing “thirty-five solid-colored comforters of love” will be better than “six pieced quilts of struggle.” One by one, the comforters take shape, with two small helpers in attendance: great-grandson Walter and great-granddaughter Gretchen, who asks if she might keep the pretty scraps of cloth that she collects from the floor as Great-Grandma works. The scraps are “remnants,” explains Great-Grandma, “leftover bits that are too tiny to do much with,” but Gretchen takes them home to her mother, who carefully stores the remnants away. Finally, the quilting is done, and Great-Grandma’s warm and cozy gifts are boxed up, sent, and received with love and appreciation by all the recipients. But how can the family reciprocate? In this story of familial caring, told with simplicity and sweetness—and complemented by quiet illustrations in soft colors—Gretchen’s mom has the answer: a handmade gift for Great-Grandma that comes with a “warm and soft” hug of its own. Endearingly presented with simple but resonant affection, this picture book celebrates multigenerational families, and it will have children appreciating them, too.
The relatable, touching story of an elderly matriarch who sews love into cozy quilts.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-1613464649
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Tate Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
