The Little Ghost Quilt's Winter Surprise

Written by Riel Nason

Illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler

Tundra Books

978-1-774885376

48 pp.

Ages 3–7

Releases August 26, 2025 

 

It might seem odd reviewing in August a book that involves winter but, when it's nearing 30°C outside, it's nice to think about the loveliness of snow and cold temperatures and the celebrations that bring us joy. For the little ghost quilt, introduced in Riel Nason and Byron Eggenschwiler's first collaboration The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt (2020), winter brings new experiences and joys too.

From The Little Ghost Quilt's Winter Surprise, written by Riel Nason, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

While his ghost sheet friends are shivering with the cold, the little ghost quilt is able to comfortably withstand the temperatures and the snow. He enjoys the same indoor activities as they do—making crafts, playing games and reading "boooooks"—but he wishes they could share in outdoor adventures as well. One December evening while visiting a human neighbourhood, the little ghost quilt is drawn to bright lights and joyous celebrations. He sees decorated trees, inside and outside; people skating and singing and baking cookies; and everything looking shiny and bright. He is saddened to think his friends are missing out on all this. So, the little ghost quilt with his big heart plans to do something for his ghost sheet friends. 

From The Little Ghost Quilt's Winter Surprise, written by Riel Nason, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

But on his way back home, the little ghost quilt is caught in a terrible winter storm and is snagged on the branch of a birch tree. He does get free, but the storm and that tree give him an idea about how to implement his plan with what they have available.

From The Little Ghost Quilt's Winter Surprise, written by Riel Nason, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

I'm delighted to review a picture book by Riel Nason whose only books that I have reviewed to date have been YA (i.e., All the Things We Leave Behind and The Town That Drowned). But, just as she demonstrated in those young adult novels, Riel Nason gives her characters depth of feeling for others. For the little ghost quilt, he's quite cognizant of the fact that his quilt gives him warmth and protection while his friends, in their skimpy sheets, have neither and must stay indoors. Yet, with his freedom to engage in outdoor activities, the little ghost quilt still wants to share his experiences with his friends. He doesn't gloat about his opportunities. Instead, he appreciates what he is able to witness and thinks about how he can share with others. Riel Nason has given a patchwork-quilt ghost the benevolence to which we should all aspire.

From The Little Ghost Quilt's Winter Surprise, written by Riel Nason, illus. by Byron Eggenschwiler

It's impossible not to feel the weather and the joy that the little ghost quilt experiences on his winter outing. Byron Eggenschwiler's pencil and digitally-rendered artwork takes us into the dullness of winter and makes the colours of the holiday season shine. By emphasizing the dreariness of the winter with a muffled environment of snow and dirt in colours of grays and browns, Byron Eggenschwiler keeps the focus on the goodness and the cheerful, in other words on the quilt colours of the little ghost and on the Christmas celebrations and those enjoying them. 

While you may not be thinking of winter or Christmas yet—times when The Little Ghost's Quilt's Winter Surprise will be a must-read—this picture book is more than a seasonal tome to share with young children. It's a story of kindness and compassion; it's a book about understanding what others are experiencing and how to help expand the scope of their lives. (Can I use the word "lives" for ghosts?) Because of the little ghost quilt's good will, he's able to bring the light to the actuality of his ghost friends both in spirit and in illumination and thus bring the essence of Christmas to all.

All the Things We Leave Behind

Written by Riel Nason

Goose Lane Editions

978-0-864-920416

240 pp.

Ages 14+

September 2016

There are so many incidents that can stand out small and don’t seem like anything at the time but end up meaning so much.  There are so many tiny twists in a life that you can never know the ultimate significance of. (pg. 80)

As teen Violet Davis looks back through her copious memories of incidents with her older brother Bliss and their parents, she now seems to see the significance of them with respect to his disappearance from their lives after graduation from high school.  There were all the signs of a wanderlust for moving beyond their small town of Riverbend and Hawkshaw, New Brunswick, for travel, for adventure.  There was also the darkness in Bliss that may have been triggered when the two first discovered the Department of Transportation’s gruesome boneyard of deer and moose road kills, perhaps Bliss’s “first proof of unhappy endings” (pg. 116) but this melancholy could not be repressed.

It seemed that every bad memory, in fact only bad memories, bubbled up in his brain.  His entire perspective changed and every thought he had was permeated and tainted, shifted and reinterpreted in a negative way. (pg. 116)

Now it’s the summer of 1977 and Violet’s parents are ostensibly on vacation, but really in search of  any evidence of Bliss’s travels.  And Violet has been left in charge of the family business, officially known as Charles J. Davis & Son Antiques but known locally and by all travellers as The Purple Barn, a roadside attraction and store brimming with crafty twig furniture and quilts and antiques and collectibles.

For Violet, the summer is more than just working at The Purple Barn, and keeping the busybody employee Mrs. Quinn in check; it’s also a time of hanging with her boyfriend Dean and best friend Jill and her boyfriend Johnny.  While her brother’s disappearance is always foremost in her mind, as she rethinks what she should have and could have done to keep him from leaving them behind, Violet is forced to struggle with two unrelated issues.  First, she must negotiate the purchase of the contents of the renowned Vaughn cottage, a grand home deserted after the drowning of the owners' grandson. Secondly, Violet is haunted by a white buck that no one else seems to see.  Is it Speckles, a piebald deer Bliss befriended years earlier,  or an apparition that is part of the rumoured ghost herd of the boneyard?

Riel Nason’s first book, multi-award winning The Town That Drowned (Goose Lane Editions, 2011), was a deeply moving examination of a small town dealing with its impending demise by deliberate flooding.  That community, Haventon, is now a memory in All the Things We Leave Behind, both as place and experience, but only one of many things left behind when people move, or die, or disappear.  Those things can be like the goods that The Purple Barn sells from estates or deserted houses, or the mementoes set to be bequeathed to family upon a grandmother’s death.  Or they can be people, like Violet, left behind when a brother goes exploring, or when someone dies.  It can even be the bones of the dead or their ghosts remaining to haunt people’s thoughts and dreams and nightmares.  The concept of things, including people, being left behind is a monumental one but one that Riel Nason addresses with sensitivity and completeness, understanding the nature of memories and mementoes as powerful beyond reason.

Having a reminder, a souvenir, to help you remember is great, but I think the best memories are through a special door in your mind that you can open without a key. (pg. 105)

Riel Nason’s writing, both intricate and profound in addressing the nature of loss and memory, does not dwell on grief, though the boneyard and the tragic deaths of the animals and people in the book are disturbing.  But, All the Things We Leave Behind is bigger and better than just that, instead becoming a souvenir in itself, one of  weighty contemplation and yearning for a past remembered and a future unlocked.  Even with the tragedies that unfold in All the Things We Leave Behind, there is a lightness and brightness in the darkness, and acknowledgement by Riel Nason that all the things we leave behind, tangible and intangible, become powerful tributes in their own ways.

The Town That Drowned

Written by Riel Nason

Goose Lane Editions

978-0-864-926401

273 pp.

Ages 12+

2011

Although drowning is typically associated with water, it is also used to indicate being overwhelmed by work, debt, sorrow - all stimuli that can defeat. While the cover of Riel Nason's The Town That Drowned suggests that water is the force that engulfs the young girl, other powers are at work in this book.  Thankfully, as her vivid blue eyes looking upward suggest, there is also the brightness of hope in The Town That Drowned.

In Haventon, New Brunswick, the Saint John River is a defining feature of the community, especially for the narrator, fourteen-year-old Ruby.  For the past several years, Ruby has accompanied her nine-year-old brother Percy to his weekly message-in-a-bottle launch from the Hackshaw Bridge.  The whole family works hard to accommodate Percy's unusual needs and behaviours but Ruby plays a significant role especially in protecting her hypersensitive brother from the taunts of other children.  Unfortunately, ever since last winter when Ruby fell through the ice at a skating party and experienced a vision of the town underwater, Ruby herself has become a victim of teasing. 

When survey stakes start showing up in the community and the premier of the province announces the building of a new hydroelectric dam, the people of Haventon become enmeshed in discussions and speculation about the plans to expropriate lands and flood Haventon.  Eventually a map is posted marking lands to be flooded, homes to be moved, and the location of the new town.

Everyone is deeply affected, but especially those around Ruby.  Mr. Cole, the elderly man for whom Ruby does occasional housekeeping, seems to spend much time reminiscing and gifting Ruby and her family with his late wife's jewelry and books while still welcoming his lazy and disreputable great nephew, Tommy, into his large home.  Ruby's father, a civil servant in Fredericton, is accused by Tommy and the local drunkard, Alton Crouse, of prior knowledge of the dam project, especially after it is determined that Ruby's home may be saved.  Her mother stops painting, Percy stops talking and her mother's best friend, Miss Stairs, visits almost daily for emotional support and gossip.  Finally, Ruby's life takes a new direction with the attentions of Troy Rutherford, the son of an antique dealer from Ontario who comes looking to purchase items being sold by moving residents.  As Ruby's mother suggests,

"Unexpected problems bring unexpected results. " (pg. 223)

Within the pool of hardships and changes experienced by the people in The Town That Drowned, there is a coming-of-age story.  While Ruby may have seen herself as vulnerable to the ridicule of her peers, Riel Nason has created a strong and wise young teen who watches and analyzes her life and those of people around her with great clarity and depth.  But, the announcement about the building of the dam and the subsequent events bring new lens through which Ruby can see everyone, including herself, with a new distinctness.

"I think I'm fine and it's just the people in this place that distort me, like a reflection in the river, altering my image." (pg. 237)

Winner of the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize for Europe and the Americas and the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award (Atlantic Book Awards), and nominated for the Canadian Library Association's Young Adult Book of the Year and the 2013 Red Maple Award of the Ontario Library Association, The Town that Drowned has been recognized nationally and internationally as a compelling read about much more than just a town.  Riel Nason has created a community of young and old, wise and irresponsible, and honest and secretive that could be the essence of any Canadian small town.  It was a privilege to visit this one.