Book Review - Circle Unbroken, The Story of a Basket and Its People

Raven, Margot Theis, ill. E.B. Lewis. 2004. Circle Unbroken. Melanie Kroupa Books: New York.

A grandmother says to her granddaughter, “Now, you’ve asked me, child, how I come to sew,” and just as the grandmother’s fingers weave a sweetgrass basket, her words weave the story of generations before her. . . The granddaughter’s old timey grandpa learned to weave the baskets when he was a young man in Africa, and when the slave-men brought him across the ocean, he continue to weave them, “and he remembered from where he came.” When her old timey grandpa and grandma where married, they had children and taught them to weave the sweetgrass baskets. Now it was her turn to learn, “as new hands talked to old friends: the bulrush, the sweetgrass, palmetto, and pine.” The historical fiction genre is beautifully portrayed in this book, revealing how a skillful craft can truly be woven into the fabric of a people. The illustrations are works of art that complement the prose-like text. At the end of the book, more information is offered about sweetgrass baskets, as well as, a selected bibliography for further information about the baskets and the culture. This is a lovely book to share with older students, and would be a wonderful extension for social studies or history curriculum