The Canada Geese Quilt (Puffin Chapters) - Softcover

"I grew up on a dairy farm in a region known as Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, along with one sister and three brothers in an area our Scottish ancestors settled almost two hundred years ago.

"Since graduating from Johnson State College Vermont with majors in both art and athletic training, I have worked as a coach, trainer, energy auditor for the Extension Service, and mostrecently as Elderhostel Director and cross-country ski instructor at the Craftsbury Sports Center before turning to writing full-time.

"I have many passions. I am an athlete, naturalist, artist, and a writer, and all of the things I do are rooted in the Northeast Kingdom. I run five to ten miles each morning, cross-country ski, mountain bike, swim, and play tennis. I also played field hockey all across the country for many years. I love the outdoors, and study and sketch birds and wildflowers which are most often the subjects of my watercolor paintings. For the past seven years, my husband, Tom, and I have beenbuilding a timber-frame house. We both enjoy working with wood, and Tom shares my love of the land, sports and animals: we have a Morgan horse, five dogs, and eight cats. We lovegardening and have planted an orchard of old apple varieties. And I love histories and walking old cemeteries.

"My first children's book, The Canada Geese Quilt, grew out of my love andadmiration for my grandmother, Helen Urie Rowell, and a special quilt the two of us made together. My grandmother began quilting when she was in her sixties, and over the next fifteen years she made over 230 quilts. I designed about twenty of them. Most of them are of birds,wildflowers and starry skies, but one is of Canada geese -- and that inspired the book.

"My husband and I live in Albany, Vermont, where I am always at work on new books."

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

In one gorgeous, slim volume, Kinsey-Warnock tells a story of a particular time, from spring to fall, in a 10-year-old's life. Ariel loves the Vermont farm where she lives with her parents and grandmother, and wonders about the changes that a new baby in the house will bring to their lives. Then her grandmother suffers a stroke, and Ariel is haunted by the feeling that nothing and no one is safe. But when Ariel's parents realize that the old woman has given up on her recovery, it is Ariel who re-engages her grandmother in the business of living, helping her sew a quilt that Ariel has designed for the new baby. Kinsey-Warnock's language is simple and direct as it conveys both the loving relationship between the old woman and the girl, and the girl's love of the land. Ariel revels in her surroundings, and her mood is infectious; the thrill of the geese migrating is movingly expressed. Bowman's realistic black-and-white illustrations depict highlights of the story, but never try to evoke the landscapes suggested by the text, or the beauty of the two geese quilts. Wisely, she leaves such moments to readers' imaginations, and so her work appears like sustaining chords beneath the melody of the text. Ages 9-up.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.