A half-Chinese, half-Finnish, miracle child (as far as her parents are concerned) falls down a misused mineshaft. During the course of the rescue operations we are given some extraordinary stories from both sides of her family history, learning that it is indeed a miracle the child was born. The book is fascinating although lacking a little in energy, I felt, but what is really amazing is that the author has twelve children and still had time to write this, and it’s not a short book!
A dangerous rescue attempt in Michigan has captured the attention of the entire country. A two-year-old girl has fallen down a mine shaft. Ursula Wong is the only child of a poor family and referred to by one member of the TV audience as 'half-breed trailer trash', not worth all the expense. But Ursula is the last of her family line and her story explodes into a gorgeous saga of culture, history and heredity. Ursula's forebears include a second-century BC Chinese alchemist; an orphaned consort to a Swedish queen; and Ursula's great-great-grandfather, Jake Maki, a miner who died in a cave-in aged twenty-nine. Ursula's fate echoes those of her ancestors, many of whom so narrowly escaped not being born that any given individual's life comes to seem a miracle.
