The Patchwork Quilt

Flournoy, Valerie. The Patchwork Quilt. Pictures by: Pinkney, Jerry

The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy is a heart-touching story about a girl named Tanya, her grandmother, and the rest of their family. The illustrations made by Jerry Pinkney make this book’s story comes to life. Flournoy tells about a middle-class African girl and how she feels fascinate of helping her grandmother in the making of a quilt for the whole family. The quilt represents the family’s treasure: Their memories and experiences. Perhaps, Flournoy is trying to make her readers feel touched by telling Tonya’s story; how family comes together, not just in the holidays.

Flournoy vocabularies are expressive; she uses a wide-selection of adverbs and adjectives, and college-level words while she is narrating the story. Although the story is written in well-understanding professional English, its character, Grandma, speaks like most of their African culture –living in the States; when she cut words at their end, especially when the verb is in gerund. The conversations are simple, like an every-day conversation between our family and friends. The character’s pictures are like paintings that Pinkney took from photographs; they look like real people that anyone could see in the street or living in the next door. Just by looking at Pinkney’s pictures, we can tell what the story is about; the expressions on every character tell the story along. Flournoy’s meaningful book teaches a valuable lesson: The value of family, and how to convert simple things -like fabrics, in this case, into an extraordinary and memorable masterpiece -the quilt- for all the family.

Flournoy, Valerie. The Patchwork Quilt. Pictures by: Pinkney, Jerry. NY: Dial Books for Young Readers.1985. Print

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