Pieces: A Year in Poems & Quilts

Pieces is a unique way of blending two artistic creations. The year in quilt designs and poems with descriptions of the signs of the seasons are woven together. Each poem is a beautiful picture of a day experienced through sound, color and movement. The designs are colorful and expressive, but the best part is the use of words to express sound and smell of that day of the year.

I loved this book and appreciate Anna's love of quilting that began with her mother and spread to her whole family. She helped surprise her mother with a quilt made for her by telling her mom she was going to write a book about quilting. Eventually, that is just what she did!

These poems are beautiful, but laid on the backdrop of the colorful quilts, they are show more spectacular.

Kids always love putting a puzzle together. Paper quilt shapes could be available for "piecing" a quilt together on a paper backing and glued on.

It would be fun to look for words that are written to sound like the sound they make: Psst!, Pop!, Pow! and Ping! This book is full of examples. show less

This was a sweet poem book where each page featured a quilt--some even homemade by Anna Hines herself. The poems mostly focused on nature, which were also the themes of the quilts. I really like the idea of making quilts the background of a page. Aesthetically, it's really neat to me. My favorite poem was "Misplaced?" It describes the lush blooming flowers in multiple vivacious ways; the lines are so compelling when iterating their blooming vigor. Then, the punchline, "But, I am curious to know, since bloomers are not sleepyheads, why do they grow in flower beds?" Too cute!

"Pieces: A Year in Poems & Quilts" was a very cute collection of poems that follow the seasons. I enjoyed the poems a lot, but I think the real star of this book was the illustrations. This is the first time I've ever seen a book illustrated by quilts and I hope that this isn't the last time. I even enjoyed the story at the end about how the author/illustrator first got into quilt-making through her mother.

The majority of the poems were short, which are my favorite kind. "Just When I Thought" and "Good Heavens" were two of my favorites.

Anna Grossnickle Hines creates two art forms represented in this book: her poetry and her quilting. She uses a variety of poetic styles as she tells the tales of the seasons throughout the year. Each poem different from the last in mood, theme, and style. Her quilts are magnificent and support each poem uniquely.

Another nice collection of poetry where there is an underlying theme of quilting. I think this one might be the first one. She talks at the end about how her mother got her into quilting accidentally. It was kind of a funny story. She also describes some of the stitches that she practiced. I liked the book. It was alright. I'm not really all that interested in quilting and poetry isn't my forte either, but this wasn't bad.

Hines, Anna. Pieces: A Year in Poems & Quilts. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books, 2001

Anna Grossnickle Hines’s A Year in Poems & Quilts is a delightful collection of poems about the times and seasons of the year, with each poem placed in the background of real quilts that depict different environments, climates and nature scenes (forests, gardens, snow-covered mountains, lakes, etc.). The first poem captures the theme of the poem collection: “Pieces of the seasons appear and disappear in a patchwork pattern making up the year.” The back of the book has an interesting “Story behind the Quilts” section. The poems will be enjoyed by small children (6 years and younger). They are short and sweet, simple and innocent, and, in my show more opinion, best read in a story time by a professional librarian or story teller to a group of small children. show less

A collection of poems about the natural world, organized by seasons and accompanied by quilt designs that match the poems. Most poems are short, relatively easy to understand, and delightful.

Positive review from Publisher's Weekly 1/8/2001.

Many of the poems would be fantastic to teach inferring and metaphors, because they offer some challenge but are still accessible to most early intermediate students. One example is the poem "Good Heavens." It compares dandelions to the sky - first there are a thousand suns (yellow flowers), then a thousand moons (round seed pods), and finally a hundred thousand stars (individual seeds blowing in the wind). All my students have the background knowledge on dandelions and stars to be able to understand show more this poem, but they need to put them together. I can't wait to watch the light bulbs go on. show less