Review Detail

‘The Story Blanket’ by Ferida Wolff and Harriet May Savitz, illustrated by Elena Odriozola, is the story of Babba Zarrah, who tells stories to children who come to visit her. They love to sit on her story blanket to hear the tales.

Babba Zarrah, the kind woman that she is, notices one day that there is a child who needs new socks, yet she has no yarn to make some. She comes to the moral of the story, in that every question has an answer, and she just has to find it. Her solution is to take some of the yarn from her story blanket on which they sit for her storytelling, and knit him the socks he so needs. As time goes on, more of the villagers receive gifts meant to keep them warm, and all the while, the story blanket continues to get smaller until the children are no longer able to sit on it since there isn’t enough of it.

The story’s moral is two-fold, in that it also captures the importance of seeing how someone is helping, and finding ways to return the favor. The villagers don’t want to let Babba Zarrah’s secret kindnesses go unnoticed.

The engaging illustrations and kind, relatable morals make this story a purposeful, enduring book to read aloud, just as Babba Zarrah shares her stories with all who care to listen.