Ursula, Under, by Ingrid Hill (New York : Penguin Edition, 2005)
"It has occurred to Annie that the birth of any of us, our coming to birth at all, in light of all the hazards every ancestor faced, is pretty much a miracle, too, and she has been chewing on this thought for several months." -- from Ursula, Under, by Ingrid Hill
Near the beginning of Ursula, Under, Justin and Annie Wong watch their daughter disappear while chasing a deer. They are devastated when they realize that she has fallen into a forgotten mineshaft on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan. While readers wait to learn tiny Ursula Wong's fate, they embark on a journey into her ancestry, the miracle and near impossibility of her existence. Traveling back through time and place, readers meet the generations in China, Finland, France, Sweden, Poland, and as emigrants to the United States -- California, Michigan. Ursula, Under is a beautifully written book, a reminder of the miracle of our existence and our roots to places and ancestors known and unknown.
"Annie cannot think of Ursula down that hole, so she thinks: So many generations, back into history and then prehistory, all concentrated into this one little girl. -- from Ursula, Under, by Ingrid Hill
Reading Guide
http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/rguides/us/ursula_under.html
"Mindy Ji stops and suddenly remembers a dream she had had when she slept briefly.... She does not know particulars. She cannot make out the myopic Sichuan alchemist in his green gown or his son, the imperial foot soldier; she has no way of identifying Kllikki in her wedding dress or her dark-eyed, square-headed, speaking and hearing son, Aamos, in his prime as well. A dark-bearded Jesuit in his long black cassock is there, and a highborn Chinese woman in an odd cart because of her birth-injured legs. Violeta is there...and Oscar Lucassen standing beside her because he belongs. Chen Bing is there...his grandson, Alabaster Wong, in his professional tweed and pince-nez that were just for effect, stands near him. Marjatta is there, again in her prime, and Emil, before he took fever. All of them, standing in mist thick as sun-rippled wheat to their waists...." -- from Ursula, Under, by Ingrid Hill