When Patricia's Great-Gramma Anna came to America as a child, the only things she brought along from Russia were her dress and the babushka she liked to throw up into the air when she was dancing. Soon enough, though, Anna outgrew the dress and her mother decided to incorporate it and the babushka into a quilt. "It will be like having a family in backhome Russia dance around us at night," she said. And so it was. Together with her Uncle Vladimir's shirt, Aunt Havalah's nightdress, and an apron of Aunt Natasha's, Anna's mother made a quilt that would be passed down through their family for almost a century. From one generation to the next, the quilt was used as a Sabbath tablecloth, a wedding canopy, and a blanket to welcome each new child into the world.

The Keeping Quilt, Patricia Polacco's signature piece, was first published in 1988 and won the Sydney Taylor Book Award from the Association of Jewish Libraries. This edition has been expanded to include Patricia's two children, who have also been able to share in the family tradition by using the quilt for birthdays and for play. Now a new generation of readers will come to cherish this heartwarming story of one family's special symbol of enduring love and faith.wn family, and the quilt that remains a symbol of their enduring love and faith.

(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

Categories:

• Children's Books
  • Classics