Safe Return

After struggling with the death of her mother and father, Ursula worries about her beloved Aunt Dana who boarded a ship during very rough seas weeks ago and has not returned home, and finds herself faithfully waiting with fear and hope.

Grade 3-6-Ursula is an 11-year-old who can't knit. Today, this is not unusual, but a century ago on the remote Swedish island of Gotland, where this novel is set, it is a liability. The island economy depends on the annual sale of hand-knitted items, which several women transport via sailing vessel to the markets of Stockholm, and everyone is expected to contribute. Ursula, who was orphaned as a young child, is uneasy about Aunt Dana making the trip. When the Galatina does not return on schedule, and another ship is known to be lost at sea, the girl struggles with her intense fear of losing yet another loved one. Upset when a local bully taunts her, she teaches herself to knit and vows to knit until the ship comes home. As Christmas approaches, Ursula insists that her uncle prepare for the holiday, while other families begin to mourn. Her faith proves true; the sweater women arrive safely on Christmas Day. While this seems a pat ending, the plot is built around an actual event from 1824. Starting slowly, the story develops well, as readers feel Ursula's determination and strong spirit. Unfortunately, there is not enough background information about this unique and interesting island and its customs (what is a Christmas Pole?). Nonetheless, those youngsters who don't become too tangled in the knitting terminology will enjoy Ursula's ability to cope when life seems to be unraveling.
Toni Dean, Patchogue-Medford Library, NY
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

When an epidemic fever hits Stockholm in the early 1800s, Ursula's parents succumb. Her aunt and uncle, living on the island of Gotland across the Baltic Sea, welcome her and she soon adjusts to her new life, although the loss of her parents is always with her. When Aunt Dana makes her annual October sailing trip to Stockholm to sell the sweaters she has knitted during the year, Ursula is terrified that the Galatina will be lost in an early storm. Vicious storms strike in November, destroying a ship just outside Gotland's harbor. It's not the Galatina, but the rescued crew reports that Aunt Dana's ship left a week before theirs did. As weeks go by with no word, Ursula's hopes wane. The only person on the island who can't knit, Ursula tries to make mittens in a difficult pattern called ``safe return'' that is supposed to bring good fortune. The first mitten is completed and the Galatina sails into the harbor. In this short but stirring book, Dexter (A is for Apple, W is for Witch, p. 687, etc.) evokes with feeling a simpler way of life. Particularly poignant is the effect Ursula's hopes has on others--she brings genuine pain to those who have given up and are ready to mourn; tension builds in each scene as her determined wishes come up against the ostensibly more realistic views of everyone else. The happy ending becomes as much a relief for readers as it is for the characters living it. A memorable story. (Fiction. 9-12) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 5^-7. Based on a true incident in 1824 on an island in the Baltic Sea, this is a spare drama of people waiting for a ship to come home. The story is told with simple beauty in the voice of 11-year-old orphan Ursula. Her beloved aunt is one of the women who sailed to Stockholm to sell the island's sweaters, which were knitted by everyone--men, women, and children--from the wool of the local sheep. There are storms at sea, and the ship is late returning. An outsider on the island, Ursula has never been able to learn to knit, but while she scans the horizon and hears the wind, she gets out her knotted mess of wool and painstakingly teaches herself to knit those rows in a pattern of waves. The knitting metaphor is rooted in a very real craft of needles, stitches, and yarn. As the days and weeks pass, readers will feel the dark dread of Ursula's waiting and her effort to knit a pattern and make a miracle. Hazel Rochman