The Faraway Drawer [Hardcover]

Harriett Diller (Author), Andrea Shine (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

A young girl finds a drawer full of sweaters her grandmother had knitted, and each sweater encourages her to imagine something different, from Norwegian dancing ladies, to a flight over the planet Mars, to a visit to the beach to collect shells.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Diller (Grandaddy's Highway, 1993, etc.) shows how a sweater is more than an article of clothing to the young girl who narrates. The beautiful sweaters her great-grandmother knit in the intricate patterns of Scandinavia, kept in the drawer, are the places from which journeys of the imagination lift off. A green sweater with Norwegian dancing ladies leads the girl to see herself costumed in that country's national garb; one of blue-and-white Swedish weaving takes her to the sea and into the sky; a red one with diamond-shaped bumps takes her to the Red Planet; a sweater with black, crow-like stitches allows her to hear bird cries. The girl rejects the prosaic names her mother applies to the sweaters, allowing the spell of the handiwork to fuel her fanciful excursions, common enough behavior while looking through such possessions and real enough so that the imagined coldness of the last place she visits sends her out of the fantasies and back to the warmth of home. The spare, lyrical text catches the mood of such dreamy days, perfectly complemented by the realistic watercolor illustrations. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Boyds Mills Press; 1st edition (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563971909
• ISBN-13: 978-1563971907
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,784,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'D RATHER BE READING FLANNERY O'CONNOR, says the bumper sticker on my car. When not reading Flannery O'Connor or working on my own writing, I enjoy spending time outdoors, especially on my bicycle. Lately, I've taken up guerrilla knitting, also known as knit graffiti. My latest knit graffiti project is a 50-foot (and growing) multi-colored chain. Like Kershaw Brittingham, the heroine of my book, CONFIRMING KERSHAW, I practice yoga. I no longer live in a one-postcard South Carolina town the way Kershaw does, though. Now I live a few miles north of the Mason-Dixon line in a Pennsylvania town with at least two postcards.