The Tale That Time Sews
Sita Brahmachari and Jane Ray
Templar Books

A little girl is waiting for the birth of a new sibling and her nana is busy sewing a very special patchwork story quilt. As she works, Nana shares the story of her own personal journey, a journey of flight over land and sea from her homeland, the finding of special love in a safe, peaceful country – the joining together from fragile threads, a new beginning where happiness awaits. A happiness that includes the arrival of a tiny baby who will be wrapped up in the wonderful gift – that beautiful patchwork quilt, a gift of the warmth of what went before, intergenerational love and the hope and promise of what is to come. With each patch added, the girl’s understanding of her own place in the world is enhanced.

There’s a familiar repeat pattern underlying Sita Brahmachari’s telling of this heartwarming story inspired by her experience and that of Jane Ray at the Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants.

There are lots of interesting details in Jane Ray’s illustrations – the Shiva Nataraja and the toran stretched out over the fireplace in one scene for example,

the patchwork piece showing a hand decorated with a mehndi design, the nesting bird (an Indian Roller maybe?). Whichever spread you choose, the reader is drawn right in and almost feels a part of the family too.

A book to cherish and to return to over and over.