Christmas Tapestry

For my second teacher recommended book I read "The Christmas Tapestry" by Patricia Polacco. This book was recommended to me by Leanne Kregel who teaches 4th and 5th grade at Springport Elementary School. The book talks about the main character Jonathan Jefferson moving from Memphis Tennessee to Detroit Michigan when his father accepts the position of pastor at a new church there. Jonathan and his sister are initially unhappy with the move and have trouble with adjusting. They complain that the church is not as nice as the one in Tennessee. Their father tells them that the church in Memphis was in even worse shape than the one in Detroit and gets them to agree to help him make the Detroit church beautiful again. The begin working very hard and start making new friends and notice that more and more people started attending church services and lending a hand in restoring the church with the goal of having it done by Christmas. On one wall in the church a huge mural of god is meant to be painted but during a winter storm standing water causes damage to the church on the wall and makes it unpaintable. Jonathan is very upset to learn that the wall wont be fixed until after Christmas and begins to miss home again. When out with his father soon after his father and him find a beautiful tapestry that would be perfect for the wall in the church. While waiting for the bus home they spend sometime in the company of an old lady and his father helps her get home after hanging up the tapestry in the church. After examining the tapestry the lady realizes that its an old antique that she hand knitted herself when she still lived in Germany. The woman tells the story of how the cloth was her wedding Suppa and the cover on her wedding bed before the Nazis came and separated her and her husband. On Christmas eve the man who is to fix the wall in the church comes and recognizes the tapestry and says that his wife made it before she was taken by the Nazis. The family is astonished and take the man to his wife to reunite them. The illustrations are very beautiful as should be expected from a Patricia Polacco book and accompany the text well. I thought this was a really beautiful story about making the best of every situation and always staying hopeful. I always love Patricia Polacco books for this reason. They are always very hopeful and relatable and remind the reader to stay positive through tough times. This is overall my favorite book that I read for this assignment.