Review by Booklist Review
K-Gr. 3. In this prequel to The Quiltmaker's Gift 0 (1999), a young woman born into great wealth risks banishment to see what lies beyond the walls of her town, encounters poverty and disease, and resolves to help the poor. The theme of out-of-control materialism segues into an exciting quest story, but what really distinguishes this are the vivid, intricately designed watercolors, double-page spreads with insets of varying size that add drama and action to the main story. The inside of the jacket is an elaborate puzzle-poster showing the book's setting and action from a panoramic perspective. The endpapers\b \b0 display and name 34 quilt patterns, presented in full color, many of which (in a different color combination) are set beside the boxed text, serving as clues to the heroine's journey; a pattern called "Twist and Turn," for example, accompanies text describing the girl's struggle through a rat-filled maze. An ambitious, strikingly illustrated moral fable that will give children much to look at; a special treat for quilters, too. --Connie Fletcher Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Fans of The Quiltmaker's Gift will enjoy this lengthy prequel that tells how the quilt maker became so generous. When she discovers that poverty exists outside her wealthy town, she forfeits her riches and instead makes quilts to give away, while wild animals care for and feed her. Both story and art are excessively elaborate and sentimental in this didactic tale. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
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) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
