Today I read your beautiful story to my class. I was crying when I got to the end. The message is terrific. Your book should be read in every classroom. I am going to buy my own copy to put on my coffee table. You don't have to be in second grade to enjoy a wonderful book. Thank you for the best story I have ever read.
– Michele Rubino
2nd Grade Teacher, St. Katharine of Siena School
Wayne, PA

My name is Jared W., and I am a 9th grade student. My Make A Difference Day Project this year was to make an "United States Youth Remembrance Quilt." I e-mailed schools throughout the United States and asked them to help me make a Remembrance Quilt for the children who lost friends and/or family members during the September 11, 2001 attack on America. I had 28 schools respond, and they represent many different States. One of the schools lost a German teacher in one of the World Trade Center Towers, and another school had twin classmates that lost their father in one of the WTC towers. I asked each school to take a 2 foot by 2 foot piece of material and put their school name and State name on the material. Then they could choose to put anything else they wanted on the quilt piece. Some chose to sign names, others chose to write messages, others chose to put their school logo on, and still others chose to make their own symbol that represented how they felt. I organized a group of quilting volunteers on Make A Difference Day, and they put the quilt together. I have been in touch with New York City's Mayor Giuliani. I would like to deliver the quilt to Mayor Giuliani and have the quilt become a traveling quilt to all of the New York City schools. I am currently waiting to see if I will be able to deliver it or if I need to send it to him. My Mom is a school principal, and she read your book. She brought it home for me to read and I decided to buy your book and send it with the quilt so teachers could read the book to the children while they read the messages on the quilt. Thank you for a great book! It fit my project perfectly!! Sincerely,
– Jared W.

Every year around the Christmas holidays, the second grade students at Valley View Elementary participate in making quilts for infants and children at the Antelope Valley Hospital Abuse Center. The students do all the work themselves (with help from one of the second grade teachers, Mrs. Fraterman) from cutting to sewing. We start off the event by reading your book so the children understand that in creating these beautiful quilts and giving away them away brings so much joy to children who need it most. It teaches them that helping a stranger in need is the right thing to do. Thank you for helping spread the message through your words and illustrations that we should all be doing the right thing by helping those who need it most.
–Gail B., CA

We just read The Quiltmaker's Gift in our after- school First Grade Book Club. One of the students—Jennifer shared the book with us. It made us happy when the quiltmaker gave the poor people the quilts. It was nice when the king gave everything he had away. We REALLY liked the book! John liked when the king gave the throne to the quiltmaker Kate said she enjoyed the book and wants to read it again soon. Andrew said Happy Holidays!
Love,
–The First Grade Book Club Students at Guggenheim school Kate, John Ryan, Andrew, Matthew, Carly, Adam, Sarah, Hannah, Lily, Alison, Jennifer and Miss Traynor :)
First Grade Class, Port Washington, NY

I just got The Quiltmaker's Gift for Christmas. I love it. It's a great story of generosity and I love to sew with my mom and sisters. I felt like giving after reading it. After my mom and I read it together I gave tons of stuff to the salvation army for poor kids. Thank you Scholastic. You changed my life.
Love,
Kristina

I am Colebrook Academy's Key Club Advisor (high school part of Kiwanis) and we are making ABC quilts for children born with HIV or AIDS. We have 7 quilts completed and two more started. We are a small school in a rural area with approximately 200 students at the high school level of which 28 are members of this club. I am very proud of the students who are working on this project, they are doing a great job. We are planning on doing an awareness project about AIDS with students in grades 6 - 12.
The Quiltermaker's Gift is a wonderful story and I can tell from the emails that this story has touched many people.
Lindy Falconer
Colebrook, New Hampshire

Last year, my second grade students decided to make 25 quilts to give to foster children entering the system. In each pocket they wrote a letter of encouragement to each child. Because of the success of this project, this year I have been able to give 20 of these fabulous books inside the pockets. The children are mesmorised with this book and I know that the book will also touch many children receiving their quilts and books. I have developed many units of study about quilting and we have only tapped the surface of this beautiful art. This year's class has also decided to give lap quilts to hospice patients. The spirit of the quiltmaker lives on in the lives of children. Thank you so much for this gift.
–Gloria Frates
Fruitland Park, FL

We read the book, The Quiltmaker's Gift, this morning in our second grade class. We loved the book!! We can't wait to read it again. The pictures are awesome, beautiful in their own spectacular way. We are making a quilt that will be donated to the Linus Project. The Linus Project gives quilts to children who have special needs, such as cancer, grief, abuse or homelessness. We painted each square ourselves. We painted lupines, just like the book Miss Rumphius. We are trying to make the world a more beautiful place. We had really a lot of fun making the quilt. We decided to make the quilt to cheer people up in our own special way.
–Jean Wensink's 2nd grade class
Howards Grove, WI

I am traveling to Haiti in late Janurary to spend a week working in an orphanage. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and the orphange is filled with about 150 malnourished, deprived children. A wonderful group of women are donating several quilts for babies or children to send with us. In the orphange many of the children sleep on a bare mattress or even the floor. Although the temperatures rarely get cold the quilts will be a wonderful blessing to the children. The brightness is sure to lighten hearts in a dismal place. Just knowing the love that is sewn into every stich is a tremendous gift. I will be leading a daily devotion and plan to use this book one day to illustrate the importance of being our brothers keeper and being responsive to the needs of others. What a wonderful book.

P.S-I gave this book to my hubby a couple Christmas' ago and he loves it still. He's a big softy and still gets choked up when he reads it. He shares it with alot of our guests.
–Cherrie Moore

Greetings to all at Scholastic!
I have just finished reading "The Quiltmaker's Gift," and I would like to share my experience making what I call "Holy Spirit Comforters." (The name is a spiritual pun, if that could be possible.)
I have a friend who was going in for cancer surgery, and she sent out a prayer request letter which mentioned that she saw all of our covering prayers "as a beautiful gold and blue blanket with stars and angels on it." I was promptly stunned with the clarity of the vision I had of the finished project and the star and angel fabric, most of which was already in my sewing room and just needed to be cut out and assembled. (I did have to buy gold star fabric.)
I quickly stitched for her a lap-sized tied quilt and was able to take it over to her before her surgery. When I arrived, I found her in the process of sewing a quilt for one of her own coworkers, who also had cancer!
She was so moved that she cried. I told her to go ahead and take the quilt to the hospital and lay on it, bleed on it, cry on it. She did so, and was able to tell everyone she met in the cancer ward the story of her Star and Angel Prayer quilt. The surgery was successful, and she still has the comforter. (It has seen her through several other surgeries as well.)
This is the same thing that the Quiltmaker experienced. It is truly a gift from God.
–Margaret Studer Hahn
San Jose, California