Great-Grandma’s Gifts by Marianne Jones and illustrated by Karen Reinikka, picture e-book, 25 pages, published by Split Tree Publishing in 2013.

A quaint book about a little girl that grows up to be a grandmother and shares her love for her children an grandchildren through sewing. Arlene learns to sew from her mother, sewing clothes for her doll. When she grows up, she continues to sew things for her own children, and then for her grandchildren.

I was a little confused about the title, as Arlene doesn’t sew anything for great-grandchildren in the story. On reflection, I suppose the real gift is from Arlene’s mother, who would be a great-grandma, as she is the one who taught Arlene to sew. I also wondered why Arlene would be cutting up shirts, coats and dresses if she had such a large supply of cloth to use? Or was the pile of cloth just old clothes that could be re-purposed?

The text is clear and simple. I liked that some of the words were coloured for emphasis, for example, the phrase “as red as a valentine” was done in red, and the colour words were in their own colours. Each page has a coloured background with simple illustrations, which looked to be done in watercolours.

This picture book didn’t really tickle my fancy. It wasn’t bad, it just didn’t capture me.

Great-Grandma’s Gifts is most suitable for lower to middle primary school children.

*I received this book as a digital copy from the author, who asked me for an honest review of this book. I did not receive any other remuneration, and the review is composed entirely of my own opinions.