It took me a long time to let M read Why Women Grow. I can’t explain why, I think it was something I felt I needed to hold close until I didn’t. Once he did, he shared his thoughts in writing. “It feels a lot like a quilt,” he wrote. “Communal. A nice mix of contemporary and retro - like it’s reaching through eras, across generations. There is something quietly radical about that, something resistant.” I enjoyed these words because they made me think of Jess, a woman who I met through the internet but burst into my very real social group with the kind of vivacity that involves ordering the entire menu at a tiny Chinese restaurant with a broken toilet and drinking pints of Guinness in the middle of a desultory Friday afternoon. Jess is radical and determined and, like me, happy to be busy, but also pleasingly silly around cake and fungus-based card games. Her savourites takeover is symptomatic of her generosity.

I make quilts. I also read a lot of books. These two things, books and quilts, have a lot in common. The first quilt exhibit I saw as a child was in my local public library. Years later when I picked up my family quilting tradition in earnest while looking for comfort as I finished a PhD, I thought back to this convergence of words and patchwork in a place where everyone was welcome. The library was actually the perfect place for a community’s quilts. Quilts, like books, are cultural record keepers. Often made from salvaged home textiles, they keep a family’s stories safe. I now teach at a university and run an Instagram account on the weekends about my love for libraries, words, and patchwork. 

Another thing that quilters and bibliophiles have in common is an undying urge to give. There are few things better than being gifted a book that makes you feel seen or a quilt that makes you feel held. 

Traditionally, quilts are not purchased but rather given: traversing generations as they are handed down, often through matriarchal lineages. As a quilter I have given quilts on many occasions: wedding quilts, cancer quilts, a memory quilt made from clothes after a plane crash, friendship quilts, moving away quilts, and even a quilt to mark the first steps of recovering Jewish-German citizenship. I keep a running list here of reasons & occasions people need quilts.

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I also give a lot of books. One of my favorite things to do is buy books for other people. The book giver is a skill that must be honed and I warrant it is one of the most deliciously difficult kinds of givers to be. 

On my 30th birthday, I decided to give my guests party favours: a unique book for each. I researched, carefully selected, and purchased twelve books across the preceding weeks. The scheming for this wrapped me in joy and curiosity for the final hours of my twenties. To give the right book is to make someone feel known as they sit quietly - alone but not lonely - reading pages that reflect something particular about them. 

As a childfree-by-choice woman in her thirties, my life is now frequently filled with opportunities to buy books for my friend’s babies. (And make quilts – but this takes longer!) This is one of the great joys of being ‘THAT eccentric auntie’ who has the added time, blissful sleep, & available budget to spoil everyone changing nappies. 

But here’s the thing, gifting kids’ books is only half for the kiddo in question; it’s just as much a gift for the parent. And therein lies one of the core principles of kids' books: they are some of the most insistently philosophical, value distilling things you can read. 

As a dyslexic child who loved books my relationship with books growing up was almost entirely a communal one. Reading is not only a quiet thing. And there are few more luxurious things than being read aloud to. This perhaps is also why I retain such a deep love for children’s books. My own parents' voices linger in their pages. 

Whenever I gift a kids’ book I write the kid a letter. I write this in hopes that someday this note slips off a shelf on a bad day when they are older. I also - per the rule above - write this note for the parent as much as the kid. 

As dedicated readers of this newsletter will know: Alice is expecting. While I had already made Alice a wedding quilt as is tradition, it was time to find her the perfect children’s book. I settled on one of my childhood favorites, a book called Miss Rumphius illustrated and written by the American artist Barbara Cooney in the early 1980s.

Here is the letter I wrote to accompany the book. ...