Quiltmaker's Journey by Brumbeau, Dan Lee Simmons, Gail de Marcken (Illustrator)

From the Publisher

Escaping from the protective walls of wealth and privilege, a young girl discovers the harsh world outside, where some people don't have as much as others. When she realizes that she has the power to help them, the young girl finds a strength and peace she never knew before. Making the loveliest quilts in all the land, the young girl decides to give them away.

Publishers Weekly

Children's NOTES Encore! Encore!Favorite characters are back by popular demand, for picture-book readers, right on up to teenagers. The Quiltmaker's Journey by Jeff Brumbeau, illus. by Gail de Marcken, reunites the team behind The Quiltmaker's Gift (PW called the artwork, as intricately worked as a patchwork quilt). This prequel of sorts lets readers catch a glimpse of the young quiltmaker's sheltered and privileged life, before she became the generous old woman in their debut book, who crafted quilts only for those in need. The tale is lengthy, but the illustrations are as intricate as ever. ( Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 2-5-In this prequel to The Quiltmaker's Gift (Pfeifer-Hamilton, 1999), Brumbeau and de Marcken tell the story of this generous artisan's early life. As a young girl, the protagonist lives the grand life of a wealthy child in a land where poverty is unknown, but she is not happy. One night she slips out of the walled city and finds the world beyond, scarred by poverty and need. She has little with her, but kind strangers help her on her journey, where she finds happiness through giving. When she returns to her walled home, the elders reject her idea to give her wealth to the needy, and she is turned out of the city. She becomes a quiltmaker, and the rest is history. The brightly detailed and realistic watercolor illustrations will give children plenty to pore over, but the plodding story is overwhelmingly didactic and much too sweet to appeal to a wide audience.-Angela J. Reynolds, Washington County Cooperative Library Services, Hillsboro, OR Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Billowing, jewel-toned patterns illuminate this visually and verbally lush prequel to The Quiltmaker's Gift (2001). Having never had a want or whim go unsatisfied, a young woman-engagingly portrayed with bouncy, white-ash hair and mobile, expressive hands and features-is shocked to see poverty in the world outside her walled town. Rejecting her town Elders' suggestion that the poor be ignored, she leaves her old life behind and, fed by kindly peasants and wild animals, begins creating quilts to warm the blanketless. As in Brumbeau's prior outing, the tale's language is sometimes overblown-one quilt "had the colors of hopeful mornings and rosy-cheeked children and gardens bursting in bloom." However, de Marcken's art more than compensates with extravagantly detailed scenes into which quilt patterns (named on the endpapers) have been incorporated, along with multi-species flights of birds and romanticized but vivacious human figures. An aerial map printed inside the jacket will be hidden by library processing, but young readers will pore over the rest of the art. (Picture book. 7-9)

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