The Patchwork House

Leigh Dodds is an elementary-school teacher in North Bay, Ontario.

This story traces a farm’s rich and diverse history, from its roots as
the dream of an immigrant Polish homesteader to its present-day
occupier. The culturally diverse families who occupy the farm over the
years include a Japanese family that is forced to move because of the
war. Sally Fitz-Gibbon’s text, effectively complemented by Dean
Griffiths’s detailed and expressive illustrations, manages to evoke in
the reader an emotional tie not just to the farm’s various
inhabitants, but to the farm itself. Highly recommended.