As she did in The Keeping Quilt, Patricia Polacco mines her rich family history to tell the story of The Blessing Cup (Paula Wiseman, $17.99), but this time she reaches back even further. Before her great-grandmother Anna came to America and made a quilt to help her family to remember their past, she was a little girl in Russia, suffering under the brutal government-supported pogroms, but comforted by the closeness and rituals of family. Their beautiful tea set, said to give all who drank from it a blessing from God, was one of the few items the family brought with them when they fled the terror of the pogroms. By the time they reached the U.S., only one cup was left; it was then passed down through the generations, in remembrance of what was left behind and as a reminder to treasure the family with which they were blessed. Ages 5-8. EAE