Fiona's Lace

by Patricia Polacco, Patricia Polacco (Illustrator)

Overview

An Irish family stays together with the help of Fiona’s talent for making one-of-a-kind lace in this heartwarming immigration story from the New York Times bestselling creator of The Keeping Quilt.

Many years ago, times were hard in all of Ireland, so when passage to America becomes available, Fiona and her family travel to Chicago. They find work in domestic service to pay back their passage, and at night Fiona turns tangles of thread into a fine, glorious lace. Then when the family is separated, it is the lace that Fiona’s parents follow to find her and her sister and bring the family back together. And it is the lace that will always provide Fiona with memories of Ireland and of her mother’s words: “In your heart your true home resides, and it will always be with you as long as you remember those you love.”

This generational story from the family of Patricia Polacco’s Irish father brims with the same warmth and heart as the classic The Keeping Quilt and The Blessing Cup, which Kirkus Reviews called “deeply affecting” in a starred review, and embraces the comfort of family commitment and togetherness that Patricia Polacco’s books are known for.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442487246
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
Publication date:	08/26/2014
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	288,325
Product dimensions:	9.70(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	AD740L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Patricia Polacco belongs to a family of storytellers, poets, farmers, teachers, and artists. They came from many parts of the world, but mainly Russia. She grew up to be an illustrator, a designer, and creator of many beloved children’s books, including The Keeping Quilt, The Blessing Cup, Fiona’s Lace, The Trees of the Dancing Goats, Babushka’s Doll, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, Sticks and Stones, and Palace of Books. She lives in Union City, Michigan. Visit her at PatriciaPolacco.com and follow her on Facebook.

Patricia Polacco belongs to a family of storytellers, poets, farmers, teachers, and artists. They came from many parts of the world, but mainly Russia. She grew up to be an illustrator, a designer, and creator of many beloved children’s books, including The Keeping Quilt, The Blessing Cup, Fiona’s Lace, The Trees of the Dancing Goats, Babushka’s Doll, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, Sticks and Stones, and Palace of Books. She lives in Union City, Michigan. Visit her at PatriciaPolacco.com and follow her on Facebook.

Editorial Reviews

06/16/2014
Polacco (Clara and Davie) adds to her library of autobiographical stories with this tale about her Irish forebear Fiona, who learns lace making when her mother’s once-expert hands are stricken with arthritis. Fiona’s father, Mick, tells his children about finding his way to their mother’s house for the first time by following scraps of lace. Not long after they leave Ireland for Chicago, the chaos of the Great Chicago Fire separates Fiona and her sister Annie from their parents, and Fiona helps her parents find them by cutting up her own precious lace to leave a similar trail. While the story occasionally bogs down in detail and the Irish dialect can be a bit over the top (“Such talk, Mick.... You’ve been kissin’ the Blarney”), Polacco’s valuable portrait of hardship in Ireland and her descriptions of the unjust working conditions that émigrés encountered in the U.S. (“Remember, they are chargin’ us rent for the rattrap we live in—they own it! And they’ll be levying for your uniform as well”) supplies a gritty picture of the immigrant experience. The prestige Fiona’s precious skill brings her is a revelation, too. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"The most compelling feature of this well-crafted immigrants’ story is how it might inspire adults to share

their own family stories with their kids." Booklist

September 1, 2014 - Booklist

"The most compelling feature of this well-crafted immigrants’ story is how it might inspire adults to share

their own family stories with their kids." Booklist

September 1, 2014 - Booklist

2014-06-10
When the textile mill in Glen Kerry, Ireland, is closed, Fiona’s family accepts passage to Chicago to work as servants for the family who paid their fares.Fiona spends the endless journey making lace as her mother taught her. She and her sister, Ailish, love the oft-told story of how their father met their mother, when she tied bits of her lace in a trail from the mill to her home so he could be introduced properly. Since the family gets no wages until they pay off their passages, the parents must take other jobs after hours, but Fiona’s lace finds a market, and the family is able to save toward buying land in Michigan. But one evening, when Fiona is making lace and her parents are out working, a fire (the great Chicago fire of 1871) breaks out near their tenement. Fiona and Ailish escape with the lace, which Fiona uses to mark a path so their parents can find them, just as their father found their mother. Polacco weaves her themes well: immigrant history, family lore, poverty and oppression, and hope for the future. The greens of Ireland are beautifully pictured, and the dun and gray of the Chicago tenements are brightened by the sweetness of the lace patterns and the girls’ red hair.Polacco’s large and multiethnic family yields up another fine story, this one in greens and grays, lace and fire. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews