Fiona's Lace

June 16, 2014
Polacco (Clara and Davie) adds to her library of autobiographical stories with this tale about her Irish forebear Fiona, who learns lace making when her mother’s once-expert hands are stricken with arthritis. Fiona’s father, Mick, tells his children about finding his way to their mother’s house for the first time by following scraps of lace. Not long after they leave Ireland for Chicago, the chaos of the Great Chicago Fire separates Fiona and her sister Annie from their parents, and Fiona helps her parents find them by cutting up her own precious lace to leave a similar trail. While the story occasionally bogs down in detail and the Irish dialect can be a bit over the top (“Such talk, Mick.... You’ve been kissin’ the Blarney”), Polacco’s valuable portrait of hardship in Ireland and her descriptions of the unjust working conditions that émigrés encountered in the U.S. (“Remember, they are chargin’ us rent for the rattrap we live in—they own it! And they’ll be levying for your uniform as well”) supplies a gritty picture of the immigrant experience. The prestige Fiona’s precious skill brings her is a revelation, too. Ages 4–8.

July 1, 2014
When the textile mill in Glen Kerry, Ireland, is closed, Fiona's family accepts passage to Chicago to work as servants for the family who paid their fares.Fiona spends the endless journey making lace as her mother taught her. She and her sister, Ailish, love the oft-told story of how their father met their mother, when she tied bits of her lace in a trail from the mill to her home so he could be introduced properly. Since the family gets no wages until they pay off their passages, the parents must take other jobs after hours, but Fiona's lace finds a market, and the family is able to save toward buying land in Michigan. But one evening, when Fiona is making lace and her parents are out working, a fire (the great Chicago fire of 1871) breaks out near their tenement. Fiona and Ailish escape with the lace, which Fiona uses to mark a path so their parents can find them, just as their father found their mother. Polacco weaves her themes well: immigrant history, family lore, poverty and oppression, and hope for the future. The greens of Ireland are beautifully pictured, and the dun and gray of the Chicago tenements are brightened by the sweetness of the lace patterns and the girls' red hair.Polacco's large and multiethnic family yields up another fine story, this one in greens and grays, lace and fire. (Picture book. 4-8)

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August 1, 2014

K-Gr 3-Once again, Polacco has drawn on a rich family history to present this story of courage, perseverance, and love. Young Fiona Hughes and her younger sister, Ailish, loved to hear their father's "grand stories," but their favorite was the one of how their parents met. Mick passed the lace parlor each day at lunch and took a liking to a young lass who worked there. None of the other girls, however, would tell him where she lived. One day he noticed a bit of fine lace tied to a bush and then another a bit farther away tied to a tree and then another, and another. The trail led straight to Annie's house and the couple's eventual marriage. Annie taught her fine skills to Fiona, a talent that would prove both profitable and lifesaving. When the local mill closed, the family left Ireland to work for a wealthy family in Chicago; in exchange for their work, their passage was taken care of, so they received no pay. Fiona's fine lace was beautiful, and there was a market for it, so she made lace while her parents had second jobs in the evenings, including the night of the Great Fire. Abandoning their home for a safer place that fateful night, Fiona and Ailish remembered their father's story and left a trail of lace to direct their parents to them. An endnote explains that a framed piece of Fiona's lace still rests with honor in Polacco's home. Illustrated with pencil and acetone markers in Polacco's recognizable style, this is a story with many themes and lessons-the love of family, the immigrant experience, and family history and stories passing from generation to generation, to name a few. It's sure to find an appreciative audience.-Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2014
Grades 1-3 The most compelling feature of this well-crafted immigrants' story is how it might inspire adults to share their own family stories with their kids. Polacco, who is of Russian Ukrainian and Irish descent, uses the experiences of her Irish ancestors to tell this story of a poor lace-making family in Ireland who, after the closing of the local mill, decide they must journey to America. It is a familiar immigrant story of expecting riches but meeting hardship, told with admirable economy and effectiveness, especially at showing the Irish women as indentured servants of a wealthy family in Chicago. The climax is the Great Chicago Fire, which we see from the perspective of Fiona and her little sister, who are alone at home. Fiona grabs some precious lace, executing a nifty reunion of the scattered family, leading to a wonderful resolution. There is quite a lot happening here, and Polacco handles it with aplomb, offering up clear, detailed prose and hardscrabble watercolor illustrations that drive home both rural and urban struggles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)