On Emma's seventy-second birthday her four children, seven grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren gave her a painting of the little village across the mountains where she grew up. "It's beautiful," she said, but that was not what she was really thinking. "That's not how I remember it at all," she said to herself.

One day Emma bought paints and brushes and painted her village just the way she remembered it. This was the beginning of a whole new life for her.

Wendy Kesselman's delightful story was inspired by the artist Emma Stern, who began late in life, and Barbara Cooney's exquisite illustrations are based on Emma Stern's paintings.