Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen

Summary

The setting of this story is a small town in the middle of winter.  The main character's name is Annabelle. Her town is very dull, where everything is black from being covered in soot and the rest is white from the snow.  Annabelle discovers a small box of yarn with every colour.  She decided to start knitting sweaters for all the people she knows.  Soon everyone was wearing a colourful sweater or hat. Annabelle even knit ones for pets, houses, trees and vehicles.  The whole town started to look bright and cozy.  It seemed that Annabelle never ran out of yarn.  People from other towns started to come to see all the sweaters and shake Annabelle's hand.  Even an Archduke, who loves fancy clothes came to see her.  He offered to buy the box of yarn from Annabelle for 1 million dollars, then two million dollars and finally ten million dollars.  She refused each time because Annabelle loved knitting and the box was special to her. The mean Archduke was angry and sent three robbers to her house to steal the famous box of yarn. They stole the box and brought it to the archduke.  When the Archduke opened the box it was empty. He cursed Annabelle with his families curse to never be happy, but she was anyway.

Did we like it?

23 out of 28 people in our class enjoyed the book.  We liked how the illustrations started out dull and then turned bright and colourful as Annabelle made sweaters for everything in the town.  The students really liked the way Jon Klassen, the illustrator, drew the sweaters to look like actual wool that has been knitted. The class enjoyed how there was more text then the other books we have read but not too much, making it still easy to read.  The students also wondered how she got the box in the first place and who it belonged to before she found it. We also liked how the ending left you wondering if Annabelle ever knit any more sweaters.