THE QUILTING BEE

Gibbons is back with another of her trademark offerings. This time, she concentrates on a quilting bee, the social event that pulls a group of quilters together to plan the quilt and, later, to piece the layers together and stitch the functional and decorative designs that define a pieced quilt. She traces the history of American quilt-making from its genesis in Egypt, China, and Turkey and provides the reader with numerous examples of pioneer quilt patterns and the origins of their names. Her signature watercolors neatly demonstrate the stages of group quilting, though the presence of a male quilter in every spread seems unusual, especially on one page where a pioneer man is signing his name on a quilt. Though there are a couple of known male quilters in the 1800s, it was still mostly a female craft. Though an adequate introduction for the youngest readers, it would work well with Ann Whitford Paul’s excellent Eight Hands Round. (Picture book. 4-8)