Review by Booklist Review
Schaefer spotlights 14 handmade objects, crafted between 1798 and 1950, focusing on the circumstances of their creation and use. She details objects ranging from a terrestrial globe to an engraved butter churn to rag dolls crafted by the author. Information about the artists is included where available; for other objects, she fashions a plausible fiction that places the objects into their original setting. Information about the techniques used in creating these one-of-a-kind objects is scarce, particularly in the case of a child's sled from the 1800s, which is accompanied by a description of its use during sugaring season in a Vermont maple grove. Most objects are of white settler origin, although a bandolier bag (Ojibwa, artist unknown) and a tin wallet (African American, Joseph Trammell) are also included. Stadlander's colorful folk-style paintings are rendered in gouache and feature numerous setting details. Spreads are appealingly designed using multiple panels that suggest quilt blocks. Appended with an author's note and further information about each artifact, this will be welcomed by craft devotees.--Kay Weisman Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this homage to the handcrafted, Schaefer (the Monkey and Elephant series) uses story vignettes to introduce 14 handmade 19th-century museum pieces from the northern and eastern U.S. Each of the objects, including a hand-painted butter churn and a beaded Ojibwe bag, features in a spread that opens with a poem ("Teck-a-teck, teck./ With a sharp pocketknife,/ seaman's hands CARVE/ a piece of smooth whale ivory"). A partitioned layout includes a lyrical backstory of the object and at least two gouache folk-style illustrations by Stadtlander (Sleep Tight Farm), rendered in a muted earth-toned palette. Close-ups of the crafting process and scenes of families using the finished product evoke a feeling of vibrant everyday activity. While the author provides nonfiction accounts when facts were available ("Carrying Case" describes how a tin wallet used by African-American Joseph Trammell housed papers attesting to his free status in mid-19th-century Virginia), most of the contextualizing tales are historical fiction. This collection illuminates the country's handmade past and offers a challenge to today's tech-tethered readers: "Consider what you might try crafting with your hands in your own time." An author's note and photo index of the items conclude the book. Ages 8-12. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Horn Book Review
Nineteenth-century, museum-quality handicrafts including a globe, a butter churn, a sled, and a weather vane inspire these fourteen lyrical stories--some totally fiction, some based on fact--of the objects' creators and users. Folksy gouache illustrations reflect the historic period and many of the tools the makers employed to carve, quilt, paint, embroider, or otherwise craft each item. Small photos and museum catalog information appended. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Fourteen "one-of-a-kind" Colonial American objects are given stories of how and why they came to be. Taking actual objects crafted in the 18th and 19th centuries in mostly the northern and eastern parts of the United States, Schaefer spins stories to give the objects historical context and life. Some objects have been well-documented and so the stories around them are factual, but others' histories are more shrouded, so Schaefer has taken the liberty of imagining, using authentic details to the time period, their creations. Illustrator Stadtlander matches these stories with primitive gouache paintings that evoke the work of the limners of the era and are full of rich, saturated colors, incorporating appropriate details and creating an authentic atmosphere with their style. Adding to the Colonial Americana look is the Eric Sloane-like display type used for headings and the onomatopoeic words (which cleverly mimic the sounds of the objects' creations). Except for those depicted in the stories of a tin box crafted by a freed slave in Virginia in order to carry his freedom papers and of a bandolier bag crafted by an unknown Ojibwe, all people illustrated are white. The objects run the gamut, including a circa-1850 scrimshaw pie crimper, an embroidery sampler from 1798, and a terrestrial globe from 1810.A carefully designed book that brings the past and the hand-created objects of the past to full-blooded life. (author's note, further information) (Informational picture book. 6-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
