Every rag rug in an old house is a record of what people wore before you knew them. That is the idea underneath this one. The children of Class 203 have fallen into a braiding craze, working their way through shoelaces and hair and pony tails, until one boy with nothing left to braid is handed a torn whiteboard rag and cannot stop. Soon the whole class is bringing scraps from home, old skirts, curtains, tablecloths, baby blankets, and the braid grows long enough to become something none of them expected. Sophie Blackall wrote this one without illustrating it, which is unusual for her, and Phoebe Wahl's pictures fill the classroom with the warmth and small domestic detail that readers of Little Witch Hazel will recognize immediately. Instructions for braiding a rag rug are included at the back, so the book tends to end with someone going to look for scissors.