The Story Blanket by Ferida Wolff

Other titles by this author - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/ferida-wolff 

Although this is an original text, its folkloric structure conjures up echoes of other traditional tales known variously as "Just Enough to Make a Story," and "I Had a Little Overcoat," (most familiar to today's children as Simms Taback's Joseph Had a Little Overcoat). The children of the village love to gather on Babba Zarrah's intricately patterned blanket to listen to her stories. Gradually, as Babba Zarrah notices first one villager and then another in need of warm clothing-socks, scarf, mittens, apron, shawl, cap, blanket, and coat-she unravels the blanket and re-knits it. The children squeeze ever closer together to hear her tales until, at last, the blanket disappears. Eventually, the children-who knew the blanket better than anyone else-are the ones to solve the mystery of the anonymous gifts. A coda of sorts restarts the story from the beginning promising an endless cycle of kindness. Knitters will realize the impossibility of unraveling a small portion of one project and re-creating the exact same pattern in the new one (the yarn would not be in the right proportions) but the visual repetition provides young readers with the clue they need to enjoy the story. White (or lightly tinted) backgrounds focus attention on the various objects, though there is a missed opportunity in the failure to show the children progressive squished onto the ever-shrinking blanket. Most effective of all is a double-page spread of Babba Zarrah's floral backside moving though a vast snowscape with only a curious owl to mark her progress. Other humorous details-the placement of the children's shoes, a raven caught in a pair of bloomers on the clothes line-will provide chuckles for the sharp-eyed reader.