By Ginger Churchill, Nicole Wong
Tanglewood Press, $15.95, 32 pages
ISBN 9781933718569

Wild Rose has things to do. Though her grandmother asks her again and again to come learn how to weave, Wild Rose would rather run through the meadow, playing with the sheep, thrilling at the fear she feels at distant lightening, spinning in the wind, and dancing in the rain. Her grandmother’s weaving seems dull and too quiet compared to the excitement outside. But when her grandmother invites her to see the rug she’s completed, Wild Rose is stunned. There in the fibers are all the natural phenomena that had so thrilled Wild Rose. She wonders how her grandmother could have known about them since she’d stayed inside the whole time. The grandmother’s explanation leads Wild Rose to discover her own power to capture nature in color and pattern.

Wong’s watercolor illustrations and Churchill’s touching story charmingly convey the common misunderstandings between old and young—and the places where they can come together to share adventure and imagination. Wild Rose has much to learn from her grandmother, but their happiness ultimately comes from the time they spend exploring the world together.

Reviewed by Margo Orlando Littell