Reuben and the Quilt Book

Summary: This book is about Reuben and his Amish family. Their family friend's grandfather is sick and in need of money to pay for the hospital bills. To help raise money for the grandfather, Reuben's family decides to sew a quilt and sell it. They all work extremely hard to make the quilt but it gets stolen. They decide to leave the thief extra pillow cases to see if he or she would bring the quilt back. Eventually, the thief brings back the quilt and they can help the man with his hospital bills.

Theme: A possible theme is knowing the difference between right and wrong

Personal Connection to the Book: I did not realize that this book was about an Amish family until I got around halfway through the book. The author provides the reader with pronunciations/lessons at the end of the book to help readers who don't know much about the Amish culture. I found this interesting because I was able to learn things I didn't know prior to reading this book.

Why I Recommend this Book: While I don't think that this book is extremely important to read to every child, I do think it provides readers with good life lessons. Datt, Reuban's dad, is full of wisdom and has lots of moral lessons for his children to learn. For example, he says, "it is wrong to steal, but how you respond can also be wrong". I think that students can take strong moral advice from this book and apply it to every day life.