StArt – A Cloak For The Dreamer

I picked up A Cloak For The Dreamer by Aileen Friedman since it belongs to the same Brainy Day series as The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns. There is a mathematical undertone in the story even though I think my daughter missed it entirely and just enjoyed the story for the story’s sake. It’s about a tailor with three sons who create their first stitched fabrics and then fashion their first cloaks out of the fabrics that they created. One of the sons (the dreamer) tries to make a fabric out of circles and discovers that it’s full of holes. This also helps his father realize that he should let his youngest son follow his true dream of traveling the world and making his own destiny. The illustrations set the story in the Eastern European town that could very easy be my country of Belarus (especially considering that all the sons have names that are so familiar to me – Ivan, Alex and Misha).

I had several different ideas about story extensions for this book, but they all required a bit of prep (like cutting out necessary shapes), and I didn’t have time for this. Luckily, we had a lot of tiny square pieces left from the mosaic craft that Anna liked so much. So I got a paper doll cutout and those leftover mosaics and suggested to Anna to make a coat (a cloak is incomprehensible to her) for her paper doll. She was very enthusiastic about it, and enjoyed the whole project. Even the frames from the mosaic were used. She was very pleased with her end result.

To see other great books and story stretchers, visit StArt hosted by A Mommy’s Adventures.