When a two-and-a-half-year-old girl falls down a mine shaft, the media provide hours of coverage of the rescue efforts. A viewer notes that the family lives in a mobile home and wonders why so much time is being "wasted" on the "trailer-trash kid." The novel answers this question by traveling back in time to visit young Ursula's ancestors who include a Chinese alchemist, a playmate of a Swedish queen, a Chautauqua troupe lecturer, and miner who died in a mine cave-in.
YA-Adult.
1565123883
2003070804
Racially mixed children--Fiction. Interracial marriage--Fiction. Finnish Americans--Fiction. Chinese Americans--Fiction. Rescue work--Fiction. Mine accidents--Fiction. Poor--Fiction. Girls--Fiction. Adventure fiction. Family life--Fiction.