My Forever Dress by Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Liz Murphy.

A little girl has a grandmother who is very good at sewing.  Each year, the grandmother makes her a special dress.  The little girl gets to pick the fabric and help in other ways like pressing the pedal on the sewing machine.  The next year, the grandmother and the little girl discuss being more eco-friendly.  So they reuse the dress and add pink leggings to make it more of a smock.  The year after that, the dress is too small to wear any more, so they take it apart and reuse the material.  Adding a knitted cardigan, the dress is once again reinvented.  In the end, there is just no way for her to keep on using the dress, so she gives it to her younger cousin and start again with a new outfit.

This is a great tangible way for children to see greener living at work.  There is no drumming of the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra though it is obviously the theme of the book.  Ziefert never lapses into didacticism, rather letting the story itself make the point. The excitement of the story is seeing each reinvention of the dress as the years pass.  Illustrator Murphy has used collage to great effect here, creating great patterns for the dress, but also throughout the story as wallpaper, tablecloths, and backgrounds.  She has an eye for colors and patterns that really shows here.

A very nice green choice for story times.  For any child who enjoys clothes and fabrics, this is a treat of a book as well.  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from library copy.