The Blue Door (Quilt Trilogy) [Library Binding]

Ann Rinaldi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1996 | Series: Quilt Trilogy (Book 3)

When Amanda Videau witnesses a crime, she goes into hiding as a worker in her great-grandfather's mill, and her discovery of the horrible working conditions leads to a confrontation with the boss.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gr. 5^-8. Set in 1841, the third volume in Rinaldi's Quilt trilogy takes place more than 50 years after A Stitch in Time (1994) and about 30 years after Broken Days (1995). The fabric of the series is indeed a patchwork now. Familiar bits of family history and characters are side by side with new people, places, and events. And though a few aspects are jarring, for the third book in a trilogy, Blue Door stands alone very well. Amanda leaves her South Carolina plantation home to visit her great-grandfather in Massachusetts. On the steamship, she changes clothes with a girl she befriends. When the ship is wrecked, she is unable to prove her identity, so she continues to Lowell and takes a mill job, using her resources to work for better conditions and to find her way back to her family. The idea of setting each book in a different generation of the same family was ambitious. Although this device is not always successful, the trilogy tells involving stories of several strong female characters, shows people at different stages in their lives, and ties together three periods in America's past. Carolyn Phelan

From Kirkus Reviews

Readers of the first two volumes of The Quilt Trilogy (A Stitch in Time, 1994, etc.) will delight in how Rinaldi (Keep Smiling Through, p. 535, etc.) brings all the pieces of her multigenerational saga together in this final work. Amanda Videau loves life on her family's South Carolina plantation, Yamassee. Then Grandmother Abigail sends her to Lowell, Mass., ostensibly to give Amanda a chance for adventure and independence. But Abigail's real hope is for Amanda to make peace with her estranged great-grandfather and to sell him on the idea of buying Yamassee cotton for his textile mill, the largest in New England. During Amanda's long steamship trip to the North, the ship blows up, killing nearly all its crew and passengers. Amanda, who saw the man who caused the explosion and knows that he will kill her, too, assumes the identity of a girl she met on the ship and flees. With the killer on her trail, no money, and a false identity, she finds employment in her great-grandfather's mill. Life as a mill girl is grim, and it isn't long before she protests, with the other workers, the abominable working conditions. Whether they've covered the previous books or not, readers will enjoy this rip-roaring tale of adventure and suspense; Amanda and all the other characters inhabit a revealing and credible historical milieu. (bibliography) (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Library Binding: 272 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Trade (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 059046051X
• ISBN-13: 978-0590460514
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,067,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ANN RINALDI is an award-winning author best known for bringing history vividly to life. A self-made writer and newspaper columnist for twenty-one years, Ms. Rinaldi attributes her interest in history to her son, who enlisted her to take part in historical reenactments up and down the East Coast. She lives with her husband in central New Jersey.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is AWSOME!! It keeps the pages turning!!, September 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Blue Door (Quilt Trilogy #3) (Paperback)

When Amanda Videau is sent North to Lowell by her grandmother Abigal who is Nathenial Chelsmford's long, lost daughter she has many great adventures. I think this book really shows how talented Ann Rinaldi is and how she puts history in her books. The other books in the trilogy were good, but this was the best. It is a very good ending to the trilogy, but I think it would be neat if Ann Rinaldi wrote some more books to go to the trilogy.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Blue Door....A Brilliant Ending to a Great Trilogy, January 9, 2004

By 

Cris44 (by a lovely pine tree) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Door (Quilt Trilogy #3) (Paperback)

If the first two entries in this trilogy are any indication, one expects a brilliant third entry. If you expected brilliancy, then you will be pleasantly surprised.
The series continues when Abigail's, a daughter who has been long estranged from her wealthy mill owning father, son is having monetary problems. He lives in the south, a land of slavery, and his plantation is going bankrupt as no one wants to buy his west isle cotton. So, in an effort to generate income, he sends his "most sensible child" Amanda north to try to beg his grandfather to buy the cotton for his mill. With her she brings a bible, with an ancient family letter and a quilt pice that will identify her as Abagail's grand daughter.
Along her journey north by steamboat she befriends two lovable sisters, one of whom is fleeing her abusive husband Nicolas. Nicolas is a dangerous man, and ion an effort to catch the girls he poses as a mechanic and in doing so causes an explosion, killing many. Prior to the accicent Amanda donned one of the sister's clothing to keep the girl hidden, and the bodies are recognized by clothing so Amanda is presumed dead. In the explosion Nicolas finds the quilt piece, and will use it to pretend to be the grandchild. Amanda, meanwhile, for protection and to try to convince her grandfather of her true identity, begins to work in a mill. Here she finds horrible conditions, worse than the slavery in the south. she had to choose whether to fight againsyt her family for mill-girl rights or try to sell them the cotton, that will allow them to continue to exploit the girls.
Intriguin story with enough complexities to be intresting, but it's still easily understandable.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amanda Videau is sent to go to her great grandpa up north., May 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Blue Door (Quilt Trilogy) (Library Binding)

Amanda Videau, the granddaughter of Abigail Chelmsford, who, in A Stitch in Time ran off to marry a Southerner, is sent up north to try to convince her great grandfather to buy Yamasse cotton.The Steamboat she is on explodes, killing most of the passengers. She assumes a fake identity to escape the killer, and trys to convincwe her great grandfather of her true identity.