Quilt of Dreams

Dwyer's (Coyote in Love) softly shaded watercolors exude cheeriness and warmth, and her patterns create a coziness befitting her subject, but the artwork is ultimately overwhelmed by the text. As the first snow falls, Katy resumes her goal to finish the quilt Gram had started for her before she died. Katy enlists the aid of her mother, who promises to give her Gram's special scissors when she has mastered her stitches. As Katy struggles with her needle and thread, she and her mother wonder about the significance of the pattern, which is revealed through Katy's dream of migrating cranes. The girl then recognizes the repeating pattern of triangles as cranes, special to Katy from her early childhood dreams, harbingers of spring for the far north and, for Gram (whose scissors are shaped like a crane), a symbol of tradition. Unfortunately, the author hammers the message a bit (""Just as these stitches hold the quilt together, our sewing connects us, you and Gram and me""), and crams into the text a surfeit of homilies (""Gram used to say that quilts are made out of time""; ""[Katy] closed her eyes and made a wish that her memories would never disappear like these beautiful snowflakes""). Ages 7-up. (Oct.)