cover image Luka's Quilt

Luka's Quilt

Georgia Guback. Greenwillow Books, $16.99 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-688-12154-9

In her second book, Guback's ( The Carolers ) storytelling proves as affable as her bright, intricate cut-paper collages. Tutu (``That's Hawaiian for grandmother'') decides to make her granddaughter Luka a special flower-garden quilt. But the traditional two-color Island quilt that Tutu crafts is a far cry from the multicolored quilt Luka has imagined. When Luka complains, ``Tutu's eyes got watery, and she quietly turned and went to her room and shut the door.'' For days afterward, says Luka, ``We had nothing to say to each other.'' At the Lei Day celebration, however, Tutu thinks of a compromise: a rainbow-hued fabric lei to place atop the green-and-white quilt. Together Tutu and Luka sew it, mending their wounds, too. The anticipation, disappointment and hurt ring true, while the resolution is vaguely unsettling: Luka never apologizes, and it is Tutu who must go the extra mile. Nonetheless, like good, real-life relationships, theirs is a work-in-progress, tender and dearly worth the effort. Ages 4-up. (May)