The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston

Prompts
Use the following questions after the second or third reading of The Quilt Story. There are questions for every one or two pages of the story.

1. What do you see in this picture? (The girl's mother is sewing a quilt.)
2. What does Abigail do with the quilt in these pictures? (She wraps it around her, and she has a tea party with it in the woods.) Have you ever played with a quilt or a blanket in the way Abigail does?
3. What is happening in these two pictures? (Abigail pretends the quilt is a dress and she rips it. Her mother sews it up.)
4. Where is Abigail? (She is hiding under the quilt.)
5. What is happening here? (Abigail's family is moving.)
6. Abigail lived a long time ago. How do you know? (The family is moving by wagon, not by car or truck. The mother and father wear old-fashioned clothes.)
7. What does Abigail's father build for her? (He builds a bed and a horse.)
8. Why does Abigail's mother rock Abigail in the rocking chair? (Abigail doesn't feel at home in the new house, and so her mother wraps the quilt around her and rocks her to make her feel better.)
9. Where does Abigail put the quilt? (She puts it in the attic.)
10. What hides an apple in the quilt? (A raccoon hides an apple in the quilt.)
11. What does the cat do to the quilt? (The cat rolls on it and makes the stuffing come out.)
12. What is happening in these pictures? (A different girl finds the quilt in the attic.)
13. What does the little girl ask her mother? ("Can you make it like new?")
14. What does the mother do? (She sews up the rips and puts new stuffing into it.)
15. What is happening in these pictures? (The little girl's family is moving to a new house.)
16. What does this family's moving make you think of? (It makes me think of Abigail and her family moving to a new house.)
17. The little girl is sad about the new house, just like who? (Abigail)
18. She wraps herself in the quilt just like who did? (Abigail)
19. Her mother rocks her to make her feel better just like who did? (Abigail's mother)
20. Whose name is on the quilt? (Abigail's name is on the quilt.)

Vocabulary

The words listed below come from the story and its pictures. As you page through the book, point to the pictures and ask the child to name the object or the action shown. This will help the child learn new words. You can use the words below, or you can choose words you think will interest your child. Below are words for every one or two pages of the story.

• sewing, candles, needle, thread
• quilt, dolls, falling star, cat, cup, saucer
• stick horse, pigtails, bows
• playing hide-and-seek, sick, sleeping
• covered wagons, hills, shawl, moon, stars
• log house, hatchet, bed, rocking horse, sad
• rocking
• attic, basket, trunk, mother mouse, baby mice, stuffing
• raccoon, tail, claws, cat
• finding
• asking, planting, scarf, patching, stitching
• moving, truck, house, cat carrier
• unpacking, boxes, dishes
• daisy
• hearts, birds, shooting stars

Excerpted from Read Together, Talk Together, the Pearson Early Childhood research-based program that makes reading aloud even more effective!