In this story of love and identity,
Saffy comes to terms with her devastation at the discovery that she is
adopted and has grown up with her aunt, uncle and cousins, not her
parents and siblings. Though her adopted family are warm, caring,
artistic people who live in a large disorganised but charming house, and
Saffy loves them, this isn’t enough, when she realises that she has a
different past.
Saffy can remember a beautiful sunlit garden and a stone angel, but had
not previously connected this with her earlier life with her mother. The
grandfather she shares with her cousins drove her from Sienna when her
mother died, but because he became too ill to talk to them about what
happened, no-one knew the details of her babyhood. Granddad dies,
bequeathing her the angel, which no-one can find. The angel becomes
Saffy’s link with her past.
Saffy’s friend Sarah manipulates her parents into holidaying in Sienna.
Because Sarah has a disability that keeps her in a wheel chair outside her
home, she gets her way by playing on her mother’s belief that anything
an able bodied person can do, Sarah can do just as well. Unfortunately
Saffy falls out of favour with Sarah’s mother, so she does not get invited
to join the Sienna trip. In a crazy sequence of events with Sarah
manipulating as only she knows how, Saffy stows her away.
They are in Sienna before the tricks are discovered. After further
manoeuvrings by Sarah, the families accept the situation, and Saffy is
allowed to stay for the holiday. The girls find the garden, only to
discover that the angel has gone, long ago, with Granddad in his car.
Hearing this news, the cousins at home hunt for the angel, turning their
disorganised house upside down and turning out cupboards that have
been untouched for years. Their efforts fail to unearth the angel, until
they hit on the idea of journeying to granddad’s long-sold house, a
hundred miles or more away. There, in the garage that has been
untouched since Granddad’s time, is the angel in bits. Nothing daunted,
they collect the pieces, and lovingly reassemble it for Saffy, to welcome
her home.
The story is told with Hilary McKay’s well-known warm-hearted
characterisation and it won her Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year. It
is ideal for an engaging and gentle read which leaves a “feel-good”
feeling.