The Quiltmaker's Gift

Jeff Brumbeau (author)

Gail de Marcken (illustrations)

Orchard Books, Scholastic, USA: 2000

ISBN: 0439309107

Genres: fantasy, picture book

Issues: community, greed, values, community

There was once a quiltmaker, high up in the misty blue mountains, who had been there so long that ‘even the oldest great, great grandfather could not recall a time when she was not up there, sewing away, day after day.' Her quilts are so beautiful that people come from miles around to try and buy them - except that they are not for sale.

For the quiltmaker's creations are only for the poor and needy. Whenever she finishes one, she goes down the mountain at night and finds someone who is cold, hungry and sleeping on the streets, and wraps the newly made quilt around them. The greedy king who rules her country tries to force her to give him one of her wonderful quilts, in the same way he has forced all his people to give him the most beautiful, precious things they possess. The quiltmaker, however, refuses, saying that only when he has given away all his possessions as gifts to other people, will he be eligible for one of her special quilts, and nothing the king does or says will change her mind.

Very much a fable for our times, this is a delightful story about the intransient nature of material possessions, and the true wealth that comes from giving to others. Jeff Brumbeau's story has remarkable depth and the simple narrative is expressed in beautiful imagery. ‘Some said there was magic in her fingers. Some whispered that her needles and cloth were gifts of the bewitched. And still others said the quilts really fell to earth from the shoulders of passing angels,' for example. It is Gail de Marcken's vibrantly coloured illustrations that lift this picture book from the special to the extraordinary, however.

The text is inserted in a box which is surrounded with incredibly detailed illustrations in joyful colours, almost stained-glass quality in their intensity. Visual readers will delight in the minutiae - there is a cat on every page; the patches on the quilts display gorgeous materials, and occasionally a small face has been inserted; there are a thousand leaves on the tree, and so on. The inside of the paper jacket cover is in fact a small poster that apparently contains two hundred and fifty quilt patterns for alert eyes to find. In addition to all of this, the author, illustrator and publisher have joined in dedicating a portion of the proceeds from the book to various projects that ‘support the spirit of generosity'.

There is a related website, www.QuiltmakersGift.com where interested readers can find out more.