Anna the Bookbinder

Cheng, Andrea

ISBN 10: 0802788327 ISBN 13: 9780802788320

Publisher: Walker Childrens, 2003

Synopsis

Anna loves to sit in the corner of her father's workshop watching his skillful hands as they lovingly repair books. She understands what other people do not: Though the new large binderies that are stealing her father's business can bind books faster, their work will not endure as long.

To many customers though, speed matters more than skill. Her father's most important client threatens to pull his business unless his latest order of books is rebound in three days. Anna's father works long hours struggling to complete the order, but all seems lost when Anna's pregnant mother goes into labor the night before the order is due. Determined not to let her father fail, Anna decides to take the fate of the family business into her own hands.

About this title

About the Author:

Andrea Cheng is the author of the picture book Grandfather Counts, and the middle-grade novel Marika. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her family.

From School Library Journal:

Kindergarten-Grade 3-Anna, the young narrator of this quiet picture book, loves to help her father in his bookbindery. She shares his concern that customers are using cheaper, large-volume operations that glue bindings rather than carefully stitching them by hand. When a special rush job needs stitching just as Anna's mother goes into labor, the girl decides to do the work herself. Her father is surprised and delighted to find the job done and done well when he comes to tell her of her new brother's birth. Rand's luminous watercolor illustrations of an early-1900s home and business beautifully re-create the era, and his characterization is exact. Papa is the essence of a worried, hardworking, but caring father. Longhaired Anna, with her wire-rimmed glasses and blue pinafore dress, is the picture of Edwardian girlhood. Their motivations are clearly delineated, and it is easy to believe that this serious and determined child could have completed the difficult task on her own.
Louise L. Sherman, formerly at Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Childrens
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0802788327
• ISBN 13: 9780802788320
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Rand Ted