Winter Lights: A Season in Poems & Quilts

ines’s art is quilted; here she makes astonishingly beautiful images in her quilts and uses them as illustrations for a wreath of poems about winter celebrations, light and dark, in the Northern hemisphere. Amazingly, she can create the sense of glitter, flash and flame in pieces of cloth. She honors St. Lucia, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice and many other images of the season: the aurora borealis, farolitos, Christmas tree and house lights. A poem about icicles—“Overnight / an icicle grew, / catching the stars / above my window. / Now / in the sunlight / it / sets/ them / free”—is set over a mass of quilted stars made of more than 8,000 tiny triangles of vibrant color. A three-line poem called “Fireplace” shows quilted show more flames dancing like tiny elves. A small child protests the sun’s going down so early in a snow-covered landscape of quilted pattern and opalescent glow. A sparkling read-aloud choice for the holiday time of year. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-9)

-Kirkus Review show less

This book had some pretty clever poems. They were perfect for the season and they can apply to almost any reader. My favorite part was looking at each quilt that served as the background for each poem. The quilts were extremely beautiful! They look like they took a lot of effort. =)

Rich, luminous fabrics.
Eleven miles of thread.
An uncountable number of stitches.
Clear, sparkling words.

With these ingredients Anna Grossnickle Hines celebrates the lights that brighten the darkest season of our year. In poems and quilts she captures each heartening glow and flicker, from the moon and aurora borealis to the holiday lights of Santa Lucia, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Chinese New Year to one lone candle and a hidden flashlight in the deep, dark night.

Full-color photos of intricate quilts serve as stunning illustrations to 16 poems about the allure of light during dark months. Includes an illustrated note on the making of the quilts.

Good read-aloud, for discussion on cultural differences pertaining to holidays and celebrations in general.

Winter Nights was a great read. I loved the pictures as well as the poems that brought the quilts to life. While reading the book, I thought of an activity that students could do after reading it. I thought of them drawing their own quilts and to make a poem that would accompany the quilt. Overall, this book was a great read.

This poem book celebrates every winter holiday out there. From Christmas to Hanukkah, to Kwanzaa to the Chinese New Years, this book will take you on a journey of lights, holiday cheer, and quilts. I would recommend this book to children studying poetry. It can be used as a read-aloud book as well.

This was an okay collection of poetry. It seemed like a lot of effort went into the quilting and the poetry. Not bad.