a house of tailors by patricia reilly giff

What difference could it possibly make to me?īut I did love to think about those soldiers, who looked so fierce and elegant. I didn't care two pins about our Otto von Bismarck and his determination to unite all of Germany in this war. Our own German soldiers from the Fifth Infantry Regiment had swarmed into our sleepy little town, determined to take on the French who lived just on the other side of the Rhine River.Īnd that sparkling river flowed so close to our front door I could have tossed a stone from my window and seen the ripples it made in the water. Gray cloth forms of Mama's clients stood along one wall, reminding me of the soldiers we saw on the streets outside, but without their spiked helmets, of course, or their splendid blue tunics with the gold trim. I could hear the pop-pop-pop of the cannons. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Readers will enjoy seeing 1870s Brooklyn through Dina’s eyes, and share her excitement as she discovers a new world.

In Dina, the beloved writer Patricia Reilly Giff has created one of her most engaging and vital heroines. And she didn’t know that sewing would reveal her own wonderful talent-and her future. She didn’t know she could grow so close to her new family or to Johann, the young man from the tailor’s shop. She didn’t know she could be this homesick, but she didn’t know she could be so brave either, as she is standing up to an epidemic or a fire. Why did she ever leave home? Here she is, still with a needle and thread-and homesick to boot. Never again! But looking for a job leads her right back to the sewing machine. When 13-year-old Dina leaves her small town in Germany to join her uncle’s family in Brooklyn, she turns her back on sewing. Since she was tiny, she’s worked in her family’s dressmaking business, where the sewing machine is a cranky member of the family.

SEWING! NO ONE could hate it more than Dina Kirk.Įndless tiny stitches, button holes, darts.

A house of tailors by patricia reilly giff