Today I’m excited to get this special delivery into my inbox.
It’s from Suzie Housley, a seasoned senior book reviewer for Midwest Book Review. I am so grateful for the time and talent she puts in to writing her reflections.
Synopsis:
Grams always meant to teach Levi how to knit. Then she gets sick and dies, leaving him with her needles still attached to a half-finished slipper. At his new school, Levi takes refuge in a rocking chair near the classroom’s knitting station, where he winds yarn into balls. That’s where Frances finds him and offers to teach him how to knit. Levi gives her every reason he can think of to leave him to his yarn, but before long, he’s working on a scarf of his own. When a boy on the bus pulls the needles from his hands and throws his work to the floor, Levi has to decide whether to pick up the stitches and keep going.
Critique:
The detail that stayed with me was the unfinished slipper. Grams used to finish a project with a different color whenever she ran out of yarn. Later, when Frances offers to sew her half of a scarf to Levi’s so they can give it away, the two pieces don’t quite match. That small echo says a great deal about what Levi learned from Grams simply by watching her. It also gives him a way to do for someone else what she did for him.
Gruener lets Levi be prickly, embarrassed, and proud, sometimes within just a few pages. That range makes him feel like a child you might recognize. He tells Frances that knitting is for girls, then hears a version of his own objection when he’s teased on the bus. The author especially well judges when he slips the loose stitches back onto his needle. He’s still angry and embarrassed, and the simple work of getting those stitches back in place gives him somewhere to put those feelings.
I’d recommend Knit Back Together for elementary classrooms and families looking for a gentle way to talk about losing a grandparent. The suggestions for starting a knitting club give the book a practical use beyond the read-aloud. I can also see a child closing it and asking to learn something a grandparent used to make. That would be a lovely conversation to have.
Editorial Note: Mom’s Choice Gold Award Winner
I created the image above from a colorin.ai-generated sheet that a student colored for me; ChatGPT put it all together to come up with the beautiful design.
If you’ve read Knit Back Together, dear reader, please consider leaving us a review at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
