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PICTURE BOOKS
Nayeri, Daniel

A Knot Is Not a Tangle

48 pp. | Knopf | November, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9780593809693 $18.99 | Library ISBN 9780593809709 $21.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780593809716 $6.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Vesper Stamper. A boy in Isfahan, Iran, learns how to design and make a rug with his grandmother. The new rug will replace the old frayed one in the main room of the house, which the boy’s grandmother made with her grandmother. The young narrator learns about rug-making, from shearing sheep to carding and spinning wool, dying yarn, and drafting a design from local design motifs of personal significance. Though the boy fixates on the idea of perfection and wants to make “the best rug in the world,” his grandmother gently suggests that the flaws are what make the rug beautiful. Depictions of Persian rugs are central to the soft-hued watercolor illustrations: a colorful, intricately designed rug is shown in use on the floor, while the new rug is shown on the loom, contrasting the beauty and usefulness of the finished product with the painstaking method of creating it. In this tender story, creating a rug becomes not just a moment when traditions can be passed down from one generation to the next but also an example of the beauty of the process and of the importance of family relationships. An author’s note gives more information on Persian and Middle Eastern rug-making
Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2025

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