Tales of a Patchwork Life

Tales of a Patchwork Life

Author: Brighid 'Biddy' McLaughlin

Publisher: Mercier Press Ltd

Published: 2024-10-24

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1781179514

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Brighid 'Biddy' McLaughlin, the acclaimed Irish journalist and storyteller, has endured unthinkable tragedy—the murder of her beloved sister Siobhan and the devastating drowning of her husband. Yet, in the face of overwhelming grief, McLaughlin refuses to be consumed by darkness. From behind the half-door of her enchanting Dalkey cottage, in exquisite and honest prose, McLaughlin reflects upon the cherished memories evoked by the objects surrounding her, carrying the reader along on a journey of grief, resilience and hope. From the delicate Madeleine tray that whispers Siobhan's name to her own folk art illustrations that dance across the pages, McLaughlin's memoir is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of storytelling to heal even the deepest wounds. As the late John B. Keane once remarked, 'Biddy had been a storyteller all her life. In drawings, words and painting, she has captured the tales of common and not-so-common folk caught up in the maelstrom of life.' McLaughlin's memoir celebrates the people, places, and passions that sustained her: her unconventional background, her bohemian friends, her love of art and cooking, and the solace found within the walls of her cottage. Tales of a Patchwork Life is a must-read for anyone seeking inspiration and comfort. It offers a powerful reminder of the extraordinary strength that lies within.


The Patchwork Bike

The Patchwork Bike

Author: Maxine Beneba Clarke

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2016-10-25

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 0734416695

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Winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Picture Book Award 2019 Winner of the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Crichton Award for Debut Illustrator 2017 Selected as a CBCA Honour Picture Book 2017 Shortlisted for PATRICIA WRIGHTSON PRIZE FOR CHILDREN'S LITERATURE 2018 'Beautifully written and incredibly powerful.' Books + Publishing 'this book is just what many of us need right now' - starred Kirkus Review When you live in a village at the edge of the No-Go Desert, you need to make your own fun. That's when you and your brothers get inventive and build a bike from scratch, using everyday items like an old milk pot (maybe mum is still using it, maybe not) and a used flour sack. You can even make a numberplate from bark, if you want. The end result is a spectacular bike, perfect for going bumpity-bump over sandhills, past your fed-up mum and right through your mud-for-walls home. A delightful story from multi-award-winning author Maxine Beneba Clarke, beautifully illustrated by street artist Van T Rudd.


Quilt of Joy

Quilt of Joy

Author: Mary Tatem

Publisher: Revell

Published: 2010-06-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1441214313

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Quilters understand with every stitch how God can make even scraps wonderfully new and striking with a little time, imagination, and love. In these touching books, Mary Tatem pieces together spiritual insights and stories of quilters into devotionals that feature some of the most beloved and recognizable quilt patterns in America. Readers will discover the historical background of each pattern and be enchanted by the spiritual reflections on joy, faith, creativity, gratitude, patience, hope, and more. Encouragement, inspiration, and celebration--as well as some great stories--await readers as they discover that, in God's design, even the smallest scraps or most frayed fragments can be fashioned into something new, complete, comfort-giving, and beautiful.


American Patchwork

American Patchwork

Author: Sonja Hakala

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2007-04-17

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1429996838

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For those who enjoyed the honesty and insight of How to Make an American Quilt, this is a moving collection of personal stories that highlight the laughter, sadness, friendships, frustrations, and triumphs shared by the more than 21 million people across the country who call themselves quilters. These touching tales from sixty-seven contributors nationwide form a patchwork of their own in the words of each individual's unique narrative. From the quilt that reunited a family divided by war and an ocean to the twenty-two foot banner that accompanied a dying woman on her last journey, American Patchwork is sure to capture the hearts of quilters and quilt lovers everywhere. Wonderfully varied, instructive, nostalgic, amusing, and often poignantly written, this gem of a book will be treasured for years to come.


Everything Sad Is Untrue

Everything Sad Is Untrue

Author: Daniel Nayeri

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1646140028

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A National Indie Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year A New York Times Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Year A Booklist Editors' Choice A BookPage Best Book of the Year A NECBA Windows & Mirrors Selection A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year A Today.com Best of the Year PRAISE "A modern masterpiece." —The New York Times Book Review "Supple, sparkling and original." —The Wall Street Journal "Mesmerizing." —TODAY.com "This book could change the world." —BookPage "Like nothing else you've read or ever will read." —Linda Sue Park "It hooks you right from the opening line." —NPR SEVEN STARRED REVIEWS ★ "A modern epic." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review ★ "A rare treasure of a book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review ★ "A story that soars." —The Bulletin, starred review ★ "At once beautiful and painful." —School Library Journal, starred review ★ "Raises the literary bar in children's lit." —Booklist, starred review ★ "Poignant and powerful." —Foreword Reviews, starred review ★ "One of the most extraordinary books of the year." —BookPage, starred review A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it? "A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore. Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.


Patchwork

Patchwork

Author: Ellen Banda-Aaku

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-02-01

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1803288868

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Winner of the 2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing. In this coming-of-age novel, acclaimed author Ellen Banda-Aaku offers a profound exploration into the effects of stigma, class, and family dynamics in 1970s Zambia. Pumpkin is a nine-year-old girl pulled between two vastly different worlds – that of her father, the wealthy and power-hungry Joseph Sakavungo, and her mother, his unstable mistress. As Pumpkin attempts to come to terms with her own identity, she struggles to fashion a future for herself out of the torn patchwork of her parents' lives. Beautifully constructed, Banda-Aaku has crafted a story that is in equal parts uplifting and bittersweet.


Calico Horses and the Patchwork Trail

Calico Horses and the Patchwork Trail

Author: Lorraine Turner

Publisher: IDW Publishing

Published: 2014-04-08

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781613778371

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When the Spirit of Horse speaks to a ten-year-old girl through her dreams and calico patches magically appear as if from nowhere, the residents of Saddlecrest, Nevada have a genuine mystery on their hands. It's the story of how a girl ripped apart by divorce helps the wild mustangs torn from the range. Together they face uncertainties brought on by the decisions of others. Carrie's mom decides to uproot her from their familiar Jersey Shore home and move to the dusty deserts of Nevada. The move is as prickly to Carrie as the cactus beside her new home. But something mysterious greets her when she closes her eyes each night--like a winding path, her dreams guide her to the horses of the Calico Mountains. Are her developing psychic abilities bringing visits from horse spirits or is her troubled mind playing tricks on her? Her new friend Milla has nightmares of her own--she's the daughter of a government official known as "The Horse Killer." How can a few children make a difference to the plight of the foals snatched from their homes without warning? Like the tiny patches of cloth that adorn a calico quilt the clues draw them all together. Follow the Calico Horses as they lead us down the trail of adversity to the peaceful pastures found by helping one another.


The Patchwork Torah

The Patchwork Torah

Author: Allison Ofanansky

Publisher: Millbrook Press

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13: 1512496057

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Kar-Ben Read-Aloud eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting to bring eBooks to life! As a child, David watches his grandfather, a Torah scribe or sofer, finish a Torah scroll for the synagogue. "A Torah is not something to be thrown away," his Grandfather explains. David's grandfather carefully stores the old Torah his new one has replaced in his cabinet, hoping to one day repair the letters so the Torah can be used again. David grows up and becomes a sofer just like his grandfather. Through the years, people bring him damaged Torahs they have saved from danger and disaster - one damaged by Nazi soldiers during World War II, one damaged in a fire in a synagogue, and one in flooding during Hurricane Katrina. David stores each of these precious Torahs in his cabinet, until his granddaughter Leah gives him the idea to make a recycled Torah from the salvaged Torah scrolls.


Patch Work

Patch Work

Author: Claire Wilcox

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-05-27

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1526645785

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WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE 'A strange and mesmerising piece of work' Sunday Times 'An absolute masterpiece' Laura Cumming 'An uncommon delight' Observer Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she turns her curator's eye to the fabric of life itself, tugging at the threads of memory: a cardigan worn by a child, a tin button box, the draping of a curtain, a pair of cycling shorts, a roll of lace, a pin hidden in a seam. Through these intimate and compelling close-ups, we see how the stories and the secrets of clothes measure out the passage of time, our gains and losses, and the way we use them to unravel and write our histories. 'Effervescent, poetic, puzzle-like ... Wilcox picks at the heartstrings' Financial Times


Little Stories of Your Life

Little Stories of Your Life

Author: Laura Pashby

Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing

Published: 2021-10-14

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1787137120

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Embrace the power of storytelling with Little Stories of Your Life. Start telling your own story, find your creative self and be more mindful. Combining the wellbeing benefits of mindfulness, creativity and daily photography, this book shows you how to use words and photographs to capture precious little moments and how to share these in order to connect with others. Each chapter explores the different ways you can tell your own stories, considers why you might choose to tell them and helps you to create a patchwork of tiny tales about your life, however small they might be. Throughout the book, Laura shares her own personal stories and research that shows you how to tune out of the bigger picture and focus on the everyday. There are exercises to gently guide you through how to journal and harness your inner creativity, as well as tips on improving your photography, photo challenges and writing prompts to get you started. It’s easy to feel that our own lives are not enough, but real lives are not defined by bright, exciting events: we don’t need a grand narrative arc. It’s the stretches of time in between that matter, the tiny moments and the daily choices that make us who we are.