Amazon Robin Falls Category:  Children Publisher: AuthorHouse ISBN-10:  1434348318 Type: Fiction Pages: 40 Copyright: Dec 9, 2007 ISBN-13: 9781434348319 Travel back in time to 1959 as Linda remembers her grandmother telling family stories while they make a memory quilt. Linda is eight years old. Granny selects material for the quilt’s blocks from pieces of clothing worn by family members. It is Linda’s job to document these blocks in a scrapbook. When the quilt is given to Linda, it will contain a hidden message for her to find. Humor and love will abound right up to the final stitch taken at the quilting bee in A Message of Love. A Message of Love takes readers on a journey back in time with Linda, all the way to 1959. Linda,then 8 years old, cherishes the time she spends with her grandmother as the two of them work on a memory quilt. As Granny pulls scraps of material from a box, Linda fills a notebook with a sample of each piece. While Linda takes careful notes in the special notebook, Granny tells a family story related to the scrap. From pieces of her father’s WWII fatigues, to Granny’s Pink Lady apron, to the angel costume that she wore in a school play, each scrap – and story – fascinates Linda and passes on the things Granny values most in life: God, family and country. For Linda, memories of a slower and gentler time come flooding back. She recalls singing songs and reciting nursery rhymes with Granny as they washed the selected material on scrub boards in the backyard, and the excitement of the quilting bee when the notebook was finally completed. It was a time when the small things in life were the most important; when people looked forward to their Saturday shopping and attending church on Sunday. Linda’s mind suddenly returns to the present when she remembers the stories that her grandmother told her about the quilt containing a message. Will Linda find a note? Or were her grandmother’s words just symbolic for the fact that the quilt had its own story to tell? The answer will cause Linda to follow in Granny’s footsteps with her own grandchild, and capture the hearts of readers young and old. Most families own a quilt. Many of those quilts are family heirlooms with special meanings. This story is about a quieter time in life during the 1950’s. Family values and life before high tech is displayed through beautiful illustrations. The subtle story with a sentimental ending will be a great bedtime story for parents or grandparents to read to children. Simple words and colorful pictures hold a child’s attention and make it ideal for an early reader. This children's picture book is for parents and grandparents with small children ages 2-8 and early readers age 5-10.  Excerpt “Here is my Pink Ladies apron. I wore it when I did volunteer work at the hospital,” Granny stated. She lovingly held the pink cloth. Linda laughed loudly every time Granny said Pink Ladies. She imagined ladies who were pink from head to toe walking around the hospital. “The Pink Ladies went to patients’ rooms offering them books,” Granny explained. “That was before television.” “No television?” Linda squealed. She was shocked. She made sure she wrote that down.

A Message of Love
Short Synopsis of the story: A Message of Love is about a grandchild that receives a quilt that she and her Grandmother put together in and around 1959 and it tells the story of how the quilt came to be. It also tells about the documentation of the materials used in the quilt through a scrapbook that the grandchild and Grandmother put together as they got ready to make the quilt. It tells us how the grandchild comes to receive it and how it has a special message of love in it.

REVIEW - Please describe what you thought of the book: A Message of Love is an endearing and lovely story of a Grandmother and a grandchild that everyone will love to share with their children and their grandchildren. Congratulations to April Robins, Celeste Robins & Ruby Robins on bringing a family tradition to life for others to be enthralled with and it will surely be read over and over again. A Message of Love is sure to start another family tradition in anyone’s home of re-reading a wonderful story to a child.

Rating Number Is: 5 *****
Name of Reviewer: Anastasia Cassella-Young, www.thebookattic.us