Summary and Reviews of The House of Tailors by Patricia Reilly Giff

The House of Tailors by Patricia Reilly Giff

The House of Tailors

by Patricia Reilly Giff
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  • Critics' Consensus (3):
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  • First Published:
  • Oct 1, 2004, 176 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Aug 2006, 176 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

In Dina, Patricia Reilly Giff has created one of her most engaging and vital heroines. Readers will enjoy seeing 1870s Brooklyn through Dina’s eyes, and share her excitement as she discovers a new world. (Ages 9+)

Sewing! No one could hate it more than Dina Kirk.

Endless tiny stitches, button holes, darts. Since she was tiny, she’s worked in her family’s dressmaking business, where the sewing machine is a cranky member of the family.

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. Never again! But looking for a job leads her right back to the sewing machine. Why did she ever leave home? Here she is, still with a needle and thread—and homesick to boot.

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. She didn’t know she could grow so close to her new family or to Johann, the young man from the tailor’s shop. And she didn’t know that sewing would reveal her own wonderful talent—and her future.

In Dina, the beloved writer Patricia Reilly Giff has created one of her most engaging and vital heroines. Readers will enjoy seeing 1870s Brooklyn through Dina’s eyes, and share her excitement as she discovers a new world.

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Beyond the Book



Patricia Reilly Giff, author of about 60 books for children, says that she tries to write books "that say ordinary people are special."  She says that all of her books are based in some way on her personal experiences, or the experiences of members of her family, or children she meets.  In an afterword to The House of Tailors she explains that the character of Dina is based on her great-grandmother, 'a loving, laughing woman...who was the heart of our family even long after her death'.
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Read-Alikes

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