The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken

The Quilt Maker's Gift by Jeff
Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau is a rather long children's picture book featuring a powerful and wise old quilt maker, a greedy king who has a mind-boggling collection of things, so that "he kept a list of all the lists of things he owned." The king begins the story looking like a Bavarian in a showy military uniform with a sash and ostentatious jewelry. In this story, the quilt maker is an unabashed philanthropist, sharing her quilts only with the needy, and the king doesn't need a thing--except to learn the difference between the happiness that comes from owning things and the happiness that comes from serving and helping others. But the king wants a quilt, and he demands that she make one for him. She agrees, but only on the condition that he give away his other possessions.

This story won the Booksense Book of the Year Award, and it is easy to understand why. It reads like time-worn folktale, and lends easily to verbal retellings. The story has some truly charming moments, with florid prose that is rivaled only by the rainbow of colors in the fanciful illustrations.

Gail de Marcken's illustrations are complicated and they tell a story on their own that exceeds the already interesting and well-told story. On one page, a spider with a magnificent web pays homage to spider woman, the weaver of Navajo myth.

Visual references to the names of the quilt patterns depicted on the pages of this story are private jokes between the reader and the author and illustrator. In one scene of the story, the little old woman is imprisoned in a cave with a hungry bear, who is meant to eat her. Instead, we see his sharp-clawed paws outstretched as she shows him so much kindness that he forgets to eat her. On these pages of the story a bear-paw patterned quilt square is nested between the images of the quilter and her new animal friend. On the next page, the two eat berries and tea, and a tea-leaf quilt square is depicted on that page of the story.

Other elements in the story share the names of the quilt squares depicted in the book. On the endpapers a full-color glossary of quilt pattern names give clues to visual play inside the pages of the story. This book really isn't for preschoolers, because it is so long, but I think some preschoolers would still enjoy reading the story. Still, I couldn't resist sharing this book, because this is a wonderful choice as a gift book or for reading to an elementary school crowd.

I suspect the author drew his king character from a familiar story in the New Testament. I'm thinking of the wealthy young man who goes away sorrowing from Christ because he asks to follow the Savior, who then instructs him to give away all of his worldly possessions. But in this story, the ending is joyful.

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