Review: The Memory Quilt

A tale of friends & family lost and found in the great Cloquet [Minnesota] fire of 1918. History, fantasy, and mystery combined. Young Adult/Historical Fiction

This is a quick-reading story with a solid historical background. The author has definitely done her homework on this subject.

The mystery element is not a ‘who-done-it’, but more of a ‘whatever-happened-to’. I quibble with using the word ‘fantasy’ as a descriptor though. While suspension of disbelief is called for to accept the story premise, true fantasy is not really involved.

14 year old Lisa Hanson is miserable and sick with the flu. Falling asleep under the ‘memory quilt’ that was made by her beloved grandmother (who died a year ago), she finds herself transported to 1918 Cloquet, Minnesota, on the day that the great fire swept through the town and surrounding areas.

Not only has she been jumped back in time, but she has become Liisa Maki – her late grandmother’s older sister, who was declared missing and presumed dead after the fire.

We follow Lisa/Liisa as she travels through that chaotic day – with her personal knowledge of what is going to happen, but her inability to change history.

The author mixes actual historical persons with her own cast of characters to tell the story. She almost gets too detailed at times in her descriptions of Cloquet’s streets and buildings though.

In the end, Lisa comes to what is a likely answer to the riddle of Liisa’s disappearance, and to a possible way to verify this supposition when she awakens back in the present day.

The fires of October 12, 1918, in northeastern Minnesota burned over 1500 square miles, killed over 450 people, injured or displaced more than 52,000 more, and destroyed over $73 million in property.

As a personal note – my parents were infants in Duluth (only 20-25 miles away) at the time of the fire. Both my grandfathers helped with various volunteer efforts – helping pick up refugees and setting backfires. And my great-grandfather was appointed to the 8 man Minnesota Fire Relief Commission in the aftermath of the disaster.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Bookwyrm - RAM

Book Review: The Memory Quilt