Nancy Jo was in bed with the measles. Her red spots were almost gone, but she wasn't allowed to do anything. So Grandmother showed her the patchwork quilt on her bed, and said, "Every patch in this quilt came from a dress of a little girl I knew who was just about your age. And every one of them has a story."

So Nancy Jo picked out the patches she liked best, and Grandmother told her stories of ten-year-old Josie, who lived sixty years ago, and what happened to her when she wore the dresses from which the patches came. Nancy Jo forgot about her measles because she liked learning about Josie—of the time she was chased by a goose, and the time she won a spelling bee, and the time she fell in the brook at the Sunday School picnic. And at the end Nancy Jo realized who Josie was.

This is a delightfully natural, unforced story that little girls 7-11 will enjoy reading themselves, though much younger children will like to have it read aloud to them. Josie wasn't too naughty, and she didn't do anything very extraordinary, but she did have fun—and that is a memory which Grandmother shares with Nancy Jo and with other small girls.

From the dust jacket