The Keeping Quilt

Plot SummaryThe Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco is a non-fiction picture book that incorporates the themes of family, culture, and tradition. Patricia Polacco creates an appreciation for family and brings readers into the Jewish culture by writing and illustrating The Keeping Quilt.

The story guides readers through four generations of her family starting with Polacco’s great grandmother, Anna. Anna immigrates to America from Russia with her family. Her mother makes a quilt out of the scraps of clothing from her family members’ clothes and makes a quilt that is passed along to following generations.Polacco uses the quilt as a strong focal point that symbolizes numerous ideas in the book. She makes the emphasis of the quilt quite obvious in her design of the book by only having the quilt colored with the rest of the scene in black and white. With only the quilt colored, attention is directed towards it and uncovers the importance of its role in the story. The blanket takes a life of its own being a part of weddings, birthdays, births, and even the death of Polacco’s great grandmother.Polacco creates a heart-warming story, but also shares her Jewish culture.

Pieces of her culture are not only expressed through the text, but also through Polacco’s artistic design of the book. The reader becomes more informed about the customs of her Jewish background by naming items such as the huppah, kulich, and babushka and gives a clear visual of them in her drawings.The Keeping Quilt is a heartfelt story that is rich in culture, information, and helps one appreciate family history.Textual ElementsPlot: The plot of this story is of a quilt that moves through four generations of a family that migrates to America. The story begins with the first generation migrating to American, specifically New York. The story identifies how different New York is from Russian. As a gesture to remember their home country a quilt is made. The quilt then travels through four generations where it is used as a tablecloth, a huppa and welcomes new babies. There is no climax to the story but the passing of time is important to the message of family tradition.Setting: The setting of the story takes place in America when a Russian family migrates to New York.

'The Keeping Quilt' is another example of her amazing work creating beautiful stories and illustrations. One reason I loved this book is the fact that the illustrations are drawn in pencil and the only thing in color is the quilt. This shows the importance of the quilt to the story. The quilt became an important symbol for the family and was.

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This is evident on the first page when the narrator mentions the move. The quilt, which is at the heart of the story, is made in New York but as the story progresses the quilt moves as it travels through the different generations. The quilt began its family traditions in New York where it served as a tablecloth, a huppa and welcomed a new baby Carle. In the second generation we see the family move to Michigan where they move the quilt. The quilt again moves with the third generation but its new location is unknown. The location of the quilt did not matter but the tradition that it carried through each generation was most important especially the weddings.Characters: The main characters of this story are the women that are born, aging and eventually die; Anna, Carle, Mary Ellen, and Patricia.

The women are shown as caring, loving individuals who value family tradition as evident by the passing of the quilt. These women also follow the pattern of life of being born, getting married, giving birth to a baby and eventually dying. Not all go through the full life cycle in the book. The quilt however seems to be a character that makes its self evident on each page of the book. The quilt and the articles that make the quilt are the only visuals in the story that receive full color. The other pictures are all black and white, even the women.Point of view: The point of view is first person narrative.

This is identified when the author introduces herself in the four generation. It is here that the reader realizes, if they did not read the jacket flap, that the author is telling the story of her family quilt that has been passed on to each generation.

Since there is no climax to the story the reader has a connection to the story and can relate the story.Theme: The theme of The Keeping Quilt is family tradition and love. This is shown when the quilt is made by a group of neighborhood women that come together as a family. It is made with the love of each woman. Then throughout the story we see this quilt used at different events that involve family and the love that they share.

The main event is the weddings and the quilt being used as the huppa. The weddings symbolize love and the family coming together for a special event. The interesting part about the weddings was how the huppa was used the same way at each one but the interaction among the participant changes with each generation.Artistic ElementsMedia and Technique: The technique is number 2 and 6 B pencils. The colored objects are acetone markers.Style of Art: The style of art is representational art. This is evident by the realistic depictions of characters, objects and events.

The reader can understand the pictures without too much thought or interpretation.Placement on page of Illustrations: The illustrations are full bleed pictures. This is evident by the illustrations running all the way to the end of the pages. The illustrations are also double page spreads.

This is identified by an illustration covering two pages. The story also utilizes a dust jacket. On the jacket flaps is where we find a summary of the story and information on the author.Analysis and CritiqueAuthor’s perspective, voice, and style: The author’s perspective was her own life.

This was an interesting way to write a book as the reader is taken by surprise unless they read the jacket flap of the book. There is a unique perspective that allows the author to tell a personal story and incorporate her culture into the book.Social relevancy: This book is socially relevant. This story shows how a culture migrated to American and brought its culture with them.

It also teaches others about the Jewish traditions.Overt and/or hidden messages: I don’t believe there were any hidden messages within the story. ReferencesCrisp, T. A summary of genre and illustrations.is an interactive website for readers on Patricia Polacco’s books ( ).Polacco, P. The Keeping Quilt. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.Sipe, L. Learning the language of picture books.

'In a glowing personal book, Polacco traces the history of a quilt made from bits of her ancestors' clothing in 'backhome Russia.' Over the course of a century, the coverlet serves as a Sabbath tablecloth, a wedding canopy, and a blanket for newborn babies.

The pictures have vigor and tremendous warmth'.-Detroit News. We will make a quilt to help us always remember home,' Anna's mother said. 'It will be like heaving the family in backhome Russia dance around us at night.

And so it was. From a basket of old clothes, Anna's babushka, Uncle Vladimir's shirt, Aunt Havalah's nightdress and an apron of Aunt Natasha's become The Keeping Quilt, passed along from mother to daughter for almost a century.

For four generations the quilt is a Sabbath tablecloth, a wedding canopy, and a blanket that welcomes babies warmly into the world. In strongly moving pictures that are as heartwarming as they are real, patricia Polacco tells the story of her own family, and the quilt that remains a symbol of their enduring love and faith. Summary: This book tells the story of a quilt made by the author's great-grandmother (Gramma Anna). Not long after she arrives in America she helps her mother and some other women make the quilt out of pieces of clothing and scraps of cloth. Gramma Anna uses the quilt to as a tablecloth, she also gets engaged while sitting on the quilt and it serves as the huppa at her wedding. Her daughter Carle is wrapped in it when she is born and it is the huppa at her wedding as well. Carle's daughter Mary Ellen took the quilt with her when she first left home and keeping with tradition she used it as the huppa at her wedding.

When Patricia (the author) is a little girl she uses the cape as a tent and a cape when she is playing. She also uses it to wrap her newborn children in. Another tradition in the story is having gold, bread, and salt in the wedding bouquets of all the women. The author says that, 'the gold was for wealth, the flower for love, and the salt so their lives would have flavor.' Review: I thought that this book was very well written and it grabbed the audience's attention. I liked that the author repeated several elements of the story such as the quilt being used for a huppa and the gold, bread, and salt in the wedding bouquets. These were good ways to show that all of the women were connected to each other in a deep and meaningful way.

One of my favorite parts of this book was the illustrations. They were all in black and white except for the quilt which was in color. I liked this because it showed how important the quilt was to the family. The reader's eye is drawn to the quilt first but then slowly takes in everything around it which I think is the author's goal. This is a really lovely book. We picked it up from the new book section at the library.

The illustrations are (pencil.charcoal?)drawn with limited colors. At first my daughter was disappointed that there was not color all over the pages. But we talked about how an artist can use limited color to draw very deep attention to a subject. The subject of attention for this book is a handmade quilt pulled together from fabric scraps of an immigrated Russian family.

The quilt passes on generation to generation. It becomes full of memories and ritual. Sweet simple tale. Very nicely done. All right, Patricia Polacco, you win this round! Rather like the last one. Or the one before that.

Actually, I don't know why I even bother pretending anymore, that I'm 'ready' for one of your books, as I am inevitably reduced to a sniffling mess when I read them. In any case, where was I? Oh right, reviewing The Keeping Quilt. This lovely autobiographical picture-book, narrated in the first-person by the author, follows the story of Polacco's family through six generations, from the time her Great-Gramma Anna first arrived in America, together with her Russian-Jewish family. It was soon after that momentous event, as Anna began to grow out of the clothing in which she immigrated, that the keeping quilt was made, put together from Anna's dress and babushka, her Uncle Vladmir's shirt, her Aunt Havalah's nightdress, and her Aunt Natasha's apron. With bits and pieces of their old lives all worked together, the quilt was a means of remembering where they came from, and was used, down through the years, in family celebrations great and small. A poignant evocation of family tradition, and how it binds the generations together, even as the society around them changes, The Keeping Quilt also touches upon some of the classic themes of the immigrant experience in America: the longing for the 'old country,' the determination not to forget where one comes from, and the slow process of change, as the years pass.

I liked the little 'snapshots' of social change offered here, through the various weddings: first the men and women celebrate separately, then together (but with no dancing!), and finally, there are even outsiders (non-Jews) at the wedding. The artwork is vintage Polacco, with a little innovation: everything except the quilt is muted, giving added significance to this treasured familial artifact. Highly recommended to all Patricia Polacco fans, as well as to anyone looking for good picture-books about family traditions and the immigrant experience. The Keeping Quilt is based on Patricia Polacco's great-grandmother Anna's arrival to America.

The only items she brought from Russia were her dress and babushka. When she outgrows her dress, Anna's mom incorporates the dress, babushka, and other family memebers' items into a family quilt.

The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation and used as a wedding canopy, Sabbath tablecloth, and blanket to welcome new babies into the family. This book would be great to use in an activity for children to find the traditions in Polacco's family and then listing which traditions changed as the generations changed.