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At eight years old, after she stood on a kitchen chair to read the names of paint colours off a chart posted on the wall, Saffron Casson discovered that she was adopted. She learned that her sisters, Caddy and Rose, and her brother, Indigo, were, in fact, her cousins, and that, following her mother’s death in a car accident in Italy, she was brought home to England by her grandfather, and had come to live with her aunt, Eve, her uncle, Bill, and their children. This revelation changed something inside of Saffy; somewhere deep inside her, she began to doubt her place in the world.
When her grandfather dies, after ten long years in a nursing home unable to communicate following a massive stroke, he leaves to Saffy, in his will, an angel. Though she has few memories of her life in Siena, Italy, now thirteen year-old Saffy dreams of a sunlit garden and, with the help of her new friend, Sarah, realizes that in that garden stood a stone angel, which her three year-old self adored. Sarah, whose unco-operative back and legs land her in a wheelchair, most of the time, possesses great determination and, when she hears the story of the stone angel, decides that she and Saffy will travel to Siena and find it. Together they set out to locate the sunlit garden, and retrieve Saffy’s angel.
Interlaced with Saffy’s story, are the stories of Caddy, Indigo, Rose, and their parents. Cadmium, at eighteen, has managed to fail every school-leaving exam and is bracing to do so again, is approaching her hundredth driving lesson and has fallen in love with Michael, her driving instructor, who endlessly praises the abilities of his girlfriend, Diane. Indigo, eleven, struggles to overcome his fear of heights by hanging out his bedroom window so that he can realize his dream of becoming a polar explorer, when he’s not cooking for the family or quietly reassuring his mother and his sisters, whom he views as his pack. Five year-old Rose spends her time painting at the kitchen table, sometimes with paint and sometimes with the contents of the fridge, and arguing with her father. Their mother, Eve, teaches art to little old ladies and juvenile delinquents, but lives to escape to her shed at the bottom of the garden where she paints nice little pictures that are snapped up by people who see them in the building society window. Bill, their father, is a serious artist, and lives, during the week, in London where he paints free of the distractions of wife and children, travelling home, on weekends, to the chaos of pet guinea pigs, unwashed dishes and family.
Saffy’s Angel, the second of four books by Hilary McKay about the Casson family children, won the 2002 Whitbread Children’s Book Award. It is a sad and funny celebration of a young girl’s search for herself, and her family’s efforts to help her do so.
FernFolio Editor