“The skeins of faith and love that connect a family are all knit together in this powerful, accessible, and deeply affecting story. “ —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
A New York Times bestseller
A bond of love unites a family throughout generations in this companion to the beloved and bestselling classic The Keeping Quilt.
As a young Russian Jewish girl in the early 1900s, Anna and her family lived in fear of the Czar’s soldiers. The family lived a hard life and had few possessions—their treasure was a beautiful china tea set. A wedding gift to Anna’s parents, the tea set came with a wish that “Anyone who drinks from this will have blessings from God. They will never know a day of hunger. Their lives will always have flavor. They will know love and joy and they will never be poor.”
When Anna’s family leaves Russia for America, they bring the tea set and its blessings. A source of heritage and security, the tea set helps Anna’s family make friends and find better lives in America. A cup from the tea set—The Blessing Cup—became an anchor of family history, and it remains a symbol of lasting love more than a century later.
This tender tribute to the importance of loving lineage is a prequel and companion to the perennial bestseller The Keeping Quilt and is told and illustrated with authenticity and tremendous heart.
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Publishers Weekly
In this prequel to The Keeping Quilt, readers learn how Polacco’s great-grandmother Anna and her parents were forced from their shtetl in Czarist Russia and made their way to America. Among the few treasures the family took with them was a vibrantly painted tea set, a kind of familial talisman (“This tea set is magic. Anyone who drinks from it has a blessing from God,” says Anna’s mother, explaining its lore), which also served as a reminder that they would always be rich in what matters: resilience and love. Only one cup from the tea set made it to their new home, but it played a central role in the family’s traditions and milestones through the generations. Polacco opens her heart to readers as few authors can, inviting them to become intimates in her family’s low and high points. As in The Keeping Quilt, she renders her unabashedly sentimental scenes of immigrant life in exuberant, fluid gray pencil, reserving the splashes and spots of color primarily for the tea set and—in a link to the earlier book—the babushka that will become part of the quilt. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)
The Horn Book
"The Keeping Quilt (1988) began with Polacco’s great-grandmother Anna’s arrival in America. In this sort-of prequel, Anna and her family are forced to leave Russia during the pogroms. The understated telling is beautifully supported and extended in art that harks back to Polacco’s early books. The illustrations are rendered in soft gray pencil. Backgrounds are roughly yet adroitly sketched, while faces and body language are particularly expressive, and panoramic views of the shtetl are lively with detail. A few strategic features draw the eye with brilliant red and blue: small accents such as the tea set and Anna’s headscarf; once, a double-page spread of the village temple in flames. This is family history at its dramatic and iconic best, a well-shaped story and a fine addition to Polacco’s oeuvre." The Horn Book
Children's Literature - Kathleen Karr
Billed as a companion to The Keeping Quilt, this offering completes Brenda Polacco’s tribute to her family’s shtetl roots in Imperial Russia. Vivid black and white sketches (rendered in two and six B pencils), portray her great-grandmother Anna as a child--her distinguishing red-print babushka (rendered with acetone markers) at first the only splash of color. Yet the book is filled with unforgettable images: Anna cowering with the family goats as a silhouette-Cossack attacks outside the stable window; the village and synagogue in flames with mounted Cossacks bearing down on the Rabbi and Torah scroll….Then there is the “Blessing Cup” itself. Part of a lovely china tea set, a single cup becomes a symbol of family solidarity. Anna’s mother explains the cup’s promise as she passes it around for everyone to drink: “We shall always know love, and as long as we are together we shall never be poor.” Of course, tea set and cup are always emphasized in color, too, as the cup follows Anna and her family to America, then from generation to generation within their new homeland. It is hard to get beyond Fiddler on the Roof/Chagall images of Jewish life in the Pale, but Polacco succeeds. Her story also succeeds in rising above shtetl memoirs to become a more universal story of unquestioned family love and support, surely a desirable message for all audiences in today’s fractured society. Reviewer: Kathleen Karr AGERANGE: Ages 4 to 8.
School Library Journal
Gr 1–4—This book is a prequel to The Keeping Quilt (S & S, 1988), but readers do not need to have read the first book to enjoy it. The entrancing charcoal illustrations soften the bittersweet story and will delight young readers as they follow the brightly colored "Blessing Cup" through pages of black and white. Polacco tells an autobiographical story, tracing the origins of a special teacup from the hands of her great-grandmother in Russia to the possession of her own children today. In telling the story of the cup, the author touches on the plight of Jewish people in Russia during the early 1900s, bringing to light the terror of the pogroms as seen through the eyes of Polacco's great-grandmother as a girl. The importance of family is the underlying message of the book; it will be best delivered by an adult who can explain some of the history that drives the action. Polacco's touching yet restrained storytelling, paired with her evocative illustrations, makes The Blessing Cup an excellent addition to any collection.—Nora Clancy, Teachers College Community School, New York City
Kirkus Reviews
Polacco has a gift for turning her own family stories into picture books that can touch the hearts of all. The Keeping Quilt is now 25 years old. In this brand-new companion, Polacco turns to her great-grandmother Anna's story of how she came to America. The pictures, vibrant and brilliantly suggestive of movement, are mostly black-and-white, shaded with her signature use of color to highlight certain details. Devotees of The Keeping Quilt will recognize Anna's babushka, which became the border of the quilt, on the young Anna when the czar's soldiers come to their Russian town to burn the temple and expel all the Jews. The family packs up its most precious possessions, including her papa's sewing machine and the beautiful china teapot and cups that were a wedding present. Even as they travel, they continue the ritual of drinking from the cups for God's blessing, breaking bread so they will never know hunger and using salt so that their lives will have flavor. When Anna's papa's health breaks down from hauling the cart with all their possessions, a widowed doctor takes the family in and cares for them until, once again, they are forced to leave. In gratitude for the doctor's care and for his supplying them with passage to America, they leave him the tea set, save for one cup. Polacco closes with the journey of that particular cup to the present day. History, religious persecution, immigration, and the skeins of faith and love that connect a family are all knit together in this powerful, accessible and deeply affecting story. (Picture book. 6-10)
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