The All-Together Quilt

by Lizzy Rockwell

Overview

Quilters and crafters rejoice! This story of a community coming together to make a quilt is a heartwarming celebration of creativity and teamwork.

The kids and grown-ups at a community center begin with lots of colorful fabrics and an idea. Then step by step they make that idea a reality. They design, cut, stitch, layer, and quilt. It's the work of many hands, many hours, and many stories. And the result is something warm and wonderful they all can share.

Lizzy Rockwell is the artistic director and organizing force behind the Norwalk Community Quilt Project: Peace by Piece, and this book is inspired by all the people who have gathered over the years to teach and learn and to make something beautiful together.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780375987519
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
Lexile:	AD500L (what's this?)
File size:	20 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lizzy Rockwell is an illustrator whose work has appeared in magazines, on book jackets, and in children's books. She studied art at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and has taught illustration there. Lizzy is also the author and illustrator of Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition, Hello Baby!, and The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness.

Editorial Reviews

"Community is at the heart of crafting a quilt for peace. Rockwell’s illustrations are eye-catching and hopeful. When people teach, share, and create together, a treasure is born." —Kirkus Reviews

"The joy derived from working together to make something beautiful shines throughout the narrative." —School Library Journal 

"Like pieces of a patchwork quilt, story and fact come together, reflecting the joy of a journey and the beauty of community friendship." —The Horn Book

"A unique introduction to the pleasures of quilt-making, intergenerational friendships, and shared creative experiences." —Booklist

From the Publisher

09/01/2020

K-Gr 4—Rockwell, the founder and artistic director of the cooperative community quilting group Peace by Piece: The Norwalk Community Quilt Project, offers a heartwarming and informative picture book inspired by her personal experience. The book centers on a group of people from different generations and ethnicities, who join together to create a work of art to hang in the library. The text provides a step-by-step process of quilting, from picking out the colorful fabrics for each square to crafting a border of handprints to surround the quilt. Vibrant illustrations rendered in pencil and gouache depict the process of designing, sewing the pieces together, and stitching the layers. Rockwell includes layouts that showcase the many activities happening in the workroom as well as cutouts that explain the specific stages in the quilting process. The joy derived from working together to make something beautiful shines throughout the narrative. A chart of nine classic quilt blocks could be a handy resource. There is also a detailed list of the globally sourced fabrics that were used in the quilt. VERDICT A great purchase for all libraries. Though fictionalized, the story depicts an inspirational vision that spotlights the fruitful results of creative community collaboration. A solid resource to use as the basis for a multigenerational maker project.—Theresa Muraski, Univ. of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Lib.

School Library Journal

2020-07-28
Community is at the heart of crafting a quilt for peace.

People of all ages, colors, sizes, and levels of expertise gather together on Fridays. Working in intergenerational pairs, they choose fabrics and shapes and decide on arrangement. The children participate fully: drawing, pinning, and sewing pieces together, under close supervision. The fabric patterns are bright, colorful, and diverse, just like the quilters themselves. The illustrations weave together the group’s activities with instructions for creating a quilt—even showing a gallery of the quilting pairs set inside stitched squares. One woman of color draws a large, striped peace symbol on a blue square, which eventually becomes the quilt’s centerpiece. The friends paint their hands and create a one-of-a-kind border that hugs this community treasure. As they gather weekly to stitch and talk, the grown-ups teach the children and the quilt grows and grows. When the quilt is completed, readers see the whole multicultural, beautiful community, full of pride and joy at the work they have done together. Rockwell’s illustrations are eye-catching and hopeful, varying layouts to control pacing but including lots of small squares. Extensive backmatter includes the real quilt this story is based on and explanations of various quilting and fabric designs. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)

When people teach, share, and create together, a treasure is born. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews