Rainbow Weaver / Tejedora del Arcoiris

by Linda Elovitz Marshall and Elisa Chavarri

Ixchel longs to weave beautiful fabric like her mother and the other women of their... read more

Ixchel longs to weave beautiful fabric like her mother and the other women of their Guatemalan mountain home. But there’s not enough thread to spare for practice, so innovative Ixchel turns to alternative materials she finds around her. She learns that grass blades and raw wool can be woven on her homemade back-strap loom, but the finished product isn’t something that will sell in the market. Finally she turns to the empty plastic bags littering the ground of her community. Washed, dried, and cut into strips, they can be woven into fabric that “looked like a beautiful rainbow, almost as pretty as the weavings of her mother, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers before her.” Dual English and Spanish language texts effectively use pattern and repetition to tell this fictionalized story, while an author’s note adds welcome background information about contemporary Mayan weavers who use thread from plastic bags to create products sold through fair trade cooperatives in countries including the United States. (Ages 4–8)

© Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2017

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