Children's Fiction Girls & Women
She Stitched the Stars
A Story of Ellen Harding Baker's Solar System Quilt
- Publisher
- Albert Whitman & Company
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2021
- Category
- Girls & Women, 19th Century, General
- Recommended Age
- 0 to 8
- Recommended Grade
- p to 3
- Recommended Reading age
- 4 to 8
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780807573228
- Publish Date
- Oct 2021
- List Price
- $23.99
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
In 1876 Ellen Harding Baker began stitching an extraordinary quilt, one that accurately depicted our solar system. Ellen, a Iowa storekeeper's wife and a mother, had a curiosity that reached far beyond the stratosphere. Today the quilt hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. This lyrical story imagines the creation of the quilt from the perspective of Ellen’s daughters, who, like their mother, lived in a time when girls and women were expected to limit their pursuit of knowledge, and who may have been inspired to dream bigger and look farther.
About the authors
Jennifer Harris is an author of lyrical children’s picture books, including She Stitched the Stars: A Story of Ellen Harding Baker’s Solar System Quilt (2021), When You Were New (forthcoming HarperCollins 2023), and The Keeper of Stars (forthcoming OwlKids 2024). Her poems have appeared in Columba and Matter. Otherwise, she’s a professor of English at the University of Waterloo.
Louise Pigott creates vibrant, detailed, and atmospheric illustrations for children's books and greeting cards that have appeared around the world.
Editorial Reviews
"This lively portrayal of the girls and their mother sparkles with curiosity and joy; it's sure to inspire questions in young listeners as it embraces feminism, history, creativity, and science. An engaging inquiry into the lives of everyday girls who are limited by historical circumstance but yearn for more."—Kirkus Reviews