Hello Watkins Wildcats. My name is Amber and I am very good friends with your principal Mrs. Forrester. She asked me if I would read you a book and I am so excited to do just that. The amazing author and illustrator Patricia Polaco has given us permission to read her books while we are all stuck inside and can't be together. This way we can at least spend a little time together online reading stories. So today I would like to read you the Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polaco. When my great grandma Anna came to America, she wore the same thick overcoat and big boots she had worn for farm work. But her family weren't dirt farmers anymore. In New York City her father's work was hauling things on a wagon and the rest of the family made artificial flowers all day. Everyone was in a hurry and it was so crowded not like in back home Russia, but all the same it was their home and most of the neighbors were just like them. When Anna went to school, English sounded to her like pebbles dropping into shallow water. In six months she was speaking English. Her parents almost never learned so she spoke English for them too. The only thing she had left of back home Russia were her dress and the babushka she liked to throw up into the air when she was dancing. And her dress was getting too small. After her mother had sewn her a new one she took her old dress and babushka. Then from a basket of old clothes she took Uncle Vladimir's shirt, Aunt Havila's night dress and an apron of Aunt Natasha's. We will make a quilt to help us always remember home on as mother said. It will be like having the family in back home Russia dance around us at night. And so it was. Anna's mother invited all the neighborhood ladies. They cut out animals and flowers from the scraps of clothing. Anna kept the needles threaded and handed them to the ladies as they needed them. The border of the quilt was made of Anna's babushka. On Friday nights Anna's mother would say the prayers that started this Sabbath. The family Eichala and chicken soup. The quilt was the tablecloth. Anna grew up and fell in love with great Grand Fasasha. To show he wanted to be her husband he gave Anna a gold coin, a dried flower and a piece of rock salt all tied into a linen handkerchief. The gold was for wealth, the flower for love, and the salt so their lives would have flavor. She accepted the hanky. They were engaged. Under the wedding Hupa Anna and Sasha promised each other love and understanding. After the wedding the men and women celebrated separately. When my grandma Carla was born Anna wrapped her daughter in the quilt to welcome her warmly into the world. Carla was given a gift of gold, flower, salt, and bread. Gold so she would never know poverty, a flower so she would always know love, salt so her life would always have flavor, and bread so that she would never know hunger. Carla learned to keep the Sabbath and to cook and clean and do washing. Mary, you'll be someday Anna told Carla and again the quilt became a wedding Hupa, this time for Carla's wedding to Grandpa George. Men and women celebrated together but they still did not dance together. In Carla's wedding bouquet was a gold coin, bread, and salt. Carla and George moved to a farm in Michigan and great grandma Anna came to live with them. The quilt once again wrapped a new little girl, Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen called Anna, Lady Grandma. She had grown very old and was sick a lot of the time. The quilt kept her legs warm. On Anna's 98th birthday the cake was a coolage, a rich cake with raisins and candied fruit in it. When great grandma Anna died, prayers were said to lift her soul to heaven. My mother Mary Ellen was now grown up. When Mary Ellen left home she took the quilt with her. When she became a bride the quilt became her Hupa. For the first time friends who were not Jews came to the wedding. My mother wore a suit but in her bouquet were gold, bread, and salt. The quilt welcomed me Patricia into the world and it was the tablecloth for my first birthday party. At night I would trace my fingers around the edges of each animal on the quilt before I went to sleep. I told my mother stories about the animals on the quilt. She told me whose sleeve had made the horse, whose apron had made the chicken, whose dress had made the flowers, and whose babushka went around the edge of the quilt. The quilt was a pretend cape when I was in the bull ring, or sometimes a tent in the steaming Amazon jungle. At my wedding to Enzo Mario, men and women danced together. In my bouquet were gold, bread, and salt, and a sprinkle of wine so I would always know laughter. Twenty years ago I held Tracy Denise in the quilt for the first time. Someday she too will leave home and she will take the quilt with her. That is the Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polaco. Isn't that a lovely book? Do you have anything where you live that's been in your family for a very long time? I would love to hear what that thing is. Hopefully I'll get to reach you again someday soon. Bye Wildcats!