Sashiko's Stitches, written and illustrated by Sanae Ishida. Worthy Kids, Little, Brown and Company. Hachette. 2024. $24.99 ages 5 and up

"After a while, all the wind 
and water and fish scales 
would tear and damage 
their clothes. 

Fabric was very precious, 
so the fishermen's families
would mend the clothes
by hand. 

They made tiny little stitches 
to fix the tears."

Sashiko is filled with feelings that often seem heavy and prickly. Others feel like cracks all over her body. Too often they are knots in her stomach or make her heart hurt. One day while she is crying, her mother wraps her in her arms and reminds her about the origin for her name. 

She tells her mother that she knows it has to do with a fisherman. Her mother concurs, and reminds her that it began with his clothes. Mama tells her the fisherman often came back from his daily fishing trip with tears in his clothes that needed mending. That work had to be done again and again. 

The mending soon took on a look of its own: beautiful designs the menders called sashiko. The mending fixed the clothes, and it made them look beautiful as well. Mama shows her daughter how to make some of those lovely stitches on a small piece of cloth. She explains the various designs and shows Sashiko how they are stitched.

Through learning how to stitch, Sashiko finds a way to calm her emotions. She stitches her feelings right onto her practice pieces and they become less and less important. When she stitches all of her pieces together, she is very pleased with herself. 

"Seeing them all together makes her feel braver 
and stronger than even her scariest fears."

Once her quilt is complete, Sashiko realizes there is so much more she can do. She gets right to it. 

The author ends with a historical description of the craft and provides illustrations of the process for dying with indigo, supplies needed for beginning to learn the technique, and common sashiko patterns.