Plot Summary

     The 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 Elements

Plot: 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. 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 Elements 

Media 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 Critique

Author’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.

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References

Crisp, T. (2008). A summary of genre and illustrations.

Patriciapolacco.com is an interactive website for readers on Patricia Polacco’s books (http://www.patriciapolacco.com/index.htm).

Polacco, P. (1988). The Keeping Quilt. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Sipe, L. (1998). Learning the language of picture books.