Children's Books discussion

In December, the Picture Book Club will snuggle up with some warm and cozy books about quilts, mittens, hats, scarves and coats.

This thread has become our Master List and General Discussion for books pertaining to the theme, but not chosen as part of our official six club reads for December. Please feel free to post if you find more books that fit this theme.

A few to start with (I may think of more):

Extra Yarn -- younger readers

The Patchwork Quilt (one of my childhood favorites)

The Keeping Quilt (Patricia Polacco--need I say more?) this is for older kids

Oma's Quilt * This was already a selection in a previous month, but I wanted to include it on this list as it's a beautiful story and features a quilt! (for older kids)

Red Knit Cap Girl (haven't read it yet but love the cover)

The Snowy Day (I always think of his hat and coat!)

The Hat Jan Brett's illustrations are amazing! suitable for younger readers

The Mitten by Jim Aylesworth (adorable! for younger kids)

Flannel Kisses such a sweet book! (suitable for younger readers)

Shall I Knit You a Hat?: A Christmas Yarn (about age 4 on up)

Please note that the suggested ages come from Amazon and I take no personal responsibility as to their veracity.

MITTENS/SCARVES/BOOTS

Knitty Kitty 4+
Missing Mittens (Mathstart: Level 1 4+
The Missing Mitten Mystery 4+
Yellow Blues 3+
Holly's Red Boots 3+
Big Sarah's Little Boots 3+
The Red Scarf 5+
The Long White Scarf 6+

HATS/COATS/SNOWSUITS

The Christmas Coat: Memories of My Sioux Childhood 5+
The Olden Days Coat 7+ (written by the late great Margaret Laurence!!)
A New Coat for Anna 3+
Joseph Had a Little Overcoat 5+
Coat of Many Colors 4+
Magritte's Marvelous Hat 4+
Shall I Knit You a Hat?: A Christmas Yarn 3+
Under My Hood I Have a Hat 4+
Bridget's Beret 4+
One Snowy Night 2+
Who Was the Woman Who Wore the Hat? 7+
Lucille's Snowsuit 5+
The Hungry Coat: A Tale from Turkey 6+
Thomas' Snowsuit 4+

QUILTS/BLANKETS

The Quilt of Belonging: Stitching Together the Stories of a Nation 9+
The Keeping Quilt 4+
Quilt Alphabet 4+
Selina and the Bear Paw Quilt 5+
Pieces: A Year in Poems & Quilts 4+
Mooshka, A Quilt Story 5+
The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom 5+
The Princess's Blankets 5+
The Twins' Blanket 3+
The Red Blanket 3+
Fly Blanky Fly 4+
The Kindness Quilt 6+
Under the Quilt of Night 5+
Stitchin' and Pullin': A Gee's Bend Quilt 5+
The Log Cabin Quilt 7+
That Summer 6+
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt 4+
Something From Nothing 5+
Amina's Blanket 8+
Franklin's Blanket 3+
Small Bunny's Blue Blanket 1+
The Quilt-Block History of Pioneer Days 7+

Definitely Extra Yarn
Jan Brett's The Mitten
Tomie de Paola's The Quilt Story
Froggy Gets Dressed (in his winter clothes)
Under My Hood I Have a Hat

Just a reminder: one more day to get in the nominations! And thanks to Gundula and Tricia for the fabulous additions to the list--it looks so comprehensive already! :-)

Kathryn wrote: "Just a reminder: one more day to get in the nominations! And thanks to Gundula and Tricia for the fabulous additions to the list--it looks so comprehensive already! :-)"

I wonder wether it might not be better to extend the nomination phase doe a few days (because of the storm).

Good point. I will extend nominations through the 7th (and my thoughts are definitely with our members affected by Sandy! I hope they all have power soon!). But I am reluctant to extend it beyond because I don't want the actual voting period to end too late since our US members will need time to place reserves or reach the library in the midst of all of the Thanksgiving library closures, travel plans, etc. coming up.

Kathryn wrote: "Good point. I will extend nominations through the 7th (and my thoughts are definitely with our members affected by Sandy! I hope they all have power soon!). But I am reluctant to extend it beyon..."

And it's not as though we don't have any nominations, lol (I thought I was adding too many, ha).

Gundula wrote: "And it's not as though we don't have any nominations, lol (I thought I was adding too many, ha)."

;-) I'm very grateful for your extensive and beautifully organized list of nominations, Gundula. I think we definitely have enough to go on if no one else nominates, but I would like to give people a little more opportunity just in case. I love big, long lists of awesome books! ;-)

Kathryn wrote: "Gundula wrote: "And it's not as though we don't have any nominations, lol (I thought I was adding too many, ha)."

;-) I'm very grateful for your extensive and beautifully organized list of nomina..."

And the point is also to have thematic lists available for later use by readers, parents etc.

Gundula wrote: "And the point is also to have thematic lists available for later use by readers, parents etc. "

Absolutely! I hope people will continue to add to the Master List even after the nomination period is over.

Here's a couple of suggestions:

Puppy Mudge Loves His Blanket
The Quiltmaker's Gift
The Tsunami Quilt: Grandfather's Story (it's about a memorial quilt, so probably off-topic)
Just Right for Christmas

Dolly wrote: "Here's a couple of suggestions:

Puppy Mudge Loves His Blanket
The Quiltmaker's Gift
The Tsunami Quilt: Grandfather's Story (it's about a memorial quilt, so probably off-topic)
Just Right for Chris..."

Thanks, Dolly!

It's now time to VOTE for the five books you would most like to read with the group. Please vote by listing your top five choices in a comment below. Please choose only from our official nominations (messages 2-12). Votes will be accepted until November 15th. Thank you :-)

My five votes go to:

The Log Cabin Quilt
Selina and the Bear Paw Quilt
The Twins' Blanket
The Olden Days Coat
The Christmas Coat: Memories of My Sioux Childhood

My five votes:

Who Was the Woman Who Wore the Hat?
The Olden Days Coat
Just Right for Christmas
The Red Scarf
Mooshka, A Quilt Story

Froggy Gets Dressed

The Quilt Story

The Kindness Quilt

Under My Hood I Have a Hat

The Keeping Quilt

My votes:

Extra Yarn
The Hat
The Mitten
One Snowy Night
Red Knit Cap Girl

The Quiltmaker's Gift
One Snowy Night
The Log Cabin Quilt
The Twins' Blanket
The Keeping Quilt

These are the ones my library system has. Others look good, but I can't get them.

The votes are in and here are the books we'll read together in December:

The Twins' Blanket

The Olden Days Coat

The Keeping Quilt

One Snowy Night

Red Knit Cap Girl

Sixth/Alternate:
Extra Yarn

I wish you all the best of luck in finding these at your local library. Happy reading!

I just got a chance to read A New Coat for Anna and can vouch that it fits the theme and is a very nice book.

Thanks, Cheryl! :-)

The Mitten


Not a bad combination of text and images, but Jan Brett's version is vastly superior. For while Jim Aylesworth's text and Barbara McClintock's artwork work well together, there is nothing even remotely Ukrainian either visually or textually being presented, and no sources, no author's note either (and my three star rating is actually quite generous, as I am indeed pretty disappointed how non Ukrainian this retelling of an Ukrainian folktale is).

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Mitten


The Mitten is magical, sweetly entertaining and yes, even gently humorous (with a rabbit, a mole, a European hedgehog, an owl, a badger, a fox and a bear sharing the warmth of young Nicki's lost white mitten, stretching and restretching it, until finally a diminutive mouse makes the bear sneeze, dislodging all of the animals in one twirling swoop). A fun and cumulative tale is The Mitten, and as such perfect for an entertaining read-aloud (especially in winter), with accompanying illustrations that both realistically and imaginatively present and and show a heavy and snowy Ukrainian winter in all its white glory, as well as the diverse animals that one by one find refuge, shelter and warmth in Nicki's mitten.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I missed this one when I worked at the textile mill museum. We used to teach
A New Coat for Anna and have the first graders act it out. They had so much fun with it but I don't know whether they understood where clothes come from. The story of the post-WWI girl in need of a new coat was probably over their heads.

We also used to teach Charlie Needs a Cloak. Story time and fake demo of how clothes get made and a craft activity. This one was more on the level of a first grader and some had read it already.

We had some other books in the gift shop. We had Extra Yarn which was cute and funny. I don't remember the other one we had but I can picture it in my head so I'll try to track down the title.

When my nieces were little, I got them Do You Have a Hat? They enjoyed that one very much.

I want to read Fritzy Finds a Hat: A Gentle Tale to Help Talk with Children About Cancer but the library doesn't have it.