Margins
1998
First Published
4.29
Average Rating
32
Number of Pages

The somber, hard-working people of an isolated town on the plains ply through life in the drabbest of gray clothes—until, in the linings of their pockets, they begin to discover lavishly embroidered pictures of far-away places, sewn there by a mysterious young woman who has recently arrived and taken up work as the town's seamstress. Exploring these stitched visions—of proud ships and sparkling oceans, of golden towers and distant cities, of buccaneers, sea serpents, and gold—the austere townspeople find themselves transformed. A husband and wife suddenly fall in love again, brightly colored flags appear on rooftops, houses are painted in azure and crimson, dances are held... Pockets is Jennifer Armstrong's tale of people made new by their imaginations, and of the mysterious young seamstress who brings this about. Her luxurious storytelling is equaled by the rich palette and exuberance of Mary GrandPré's illustrations.

Avg Rating
4.29
Number of Ratings
133
5 STARS
54%
4 STARS
27%
3 STARS
12%
2 STARS
7%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Jennifer Armstrong
Jennifer Armstrong
Author · 34 books

Jennifer Armstrong learned to read and write in Switzerland, in a small school for English speaking children on the shores of Lake Zurich. The school library had no librarian and no catalog – just shelves of interesting books. She selected books on her own, read what she could, and made up the rest. It was perfect. As a result, she made her career choice – to become an author – in first grade. When she and her family returned to the U.S. she discovered that not all children wrote stories and read books, and that not all teachers thought reading real books was important. Nevertheless, she was undaunted. Within a year of leaving college she was a free-lance ghost writer for a popular juvenile book series, and before long published her first trade novel, Steal Away, which won her a Golden Kite Honor for fiction. More than fifty additional novels and picture books followed, and before long she also tried her hand at nonfiction, winning an Orbis Pictus Award and a Horn Book Honor for her first nonfiction book, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World. In late 2003 she will travel to the South Pole with the National Science Foundation to do research for a book on ice.

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