North Street Book Prize, first place award in the Children's Picture Book category Winning Writers 2019  The judges and screeners were in agreement about loving Mama's Needle, Jeanette W. Stickel's excellent children's book about a young African-American boy whose mother is an artistically gifted quilter. She uses her needle not only to patch clothes but to create a beautiful quilt for his bed, a project that connects perfectly to the book's theme of dreaming. Ellen LaFleche A young boy tells of his Mama's needle and her spool of long white thread. She uses it to patch holes in the knees of his pants, bind scraps of cloth into quilts and stitch dreams into reality. When he has a magical dream of her needle and thread, mama stitches a quilt together for remembering, and on it, are patches of his dreams. Wearing his quilt as a cape, he flies with his imagination. The narrator of this engaging story is a young African American child. One night, he dreams of his Mama's needle and her spool of long white thread, flying through the air with its white tail of thread floating along behind, like it's riding a wave. The needle catches a bird flying by but doesn't hurt it. It spears some leaves shivering in a tree, and rays from the sun. It even snatches the tail of the wind and wrestles it onto the thread. His mama laughs when she hears about the dream but she stitches the images onto a quilt. "Her long shiny needle stitched those pieces together for remembering. Mama says I should go ahead and fly with my dreams." And he does, taking his quilt with him. It becomes a cape as he rides a dog sled up a snow-covered mountain; a parachute, a saddle-blanket on a camel, a tent, a sail on a sail-boat and finally, a flying carpet. I love the book's focus on the needle and the way it symbolized joy and imagination, power and empathy, creativity and thrift. Consider these lines from the book, in which the boy is describing his dream: "That needle caught a bird flying by, but it didn't hurt it" and "it speared some leaves shivering in a tree, and rays from the sun." These poetic words meld beautifully with the colorful drawings of fabric and scraps. - Winning Writers The voice of wonder and curiosity is a solid thread throughout ... And the reality of the quilt is a very comforting through line. - Writer's Digest Jeanette Stickel is an award-winning author of poetry and has authored several books for children, speech therapists, teachers and parents. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Licensed as a Speech-Language Pathologist, Jeanette has worked in the field for over thirty years and holds the position of Literary Director/Partner of SpeechFix, an innovative company providing quality speech and language materials for home and school.