Goldstone

Anne Hutchings is an elementary-school teacher-librarian with the Durham
Board of Education.

This engrossing story is woven around two never-to-be-forgotten events
from the annals of the Canadian Pacific Railway: the Rogers Pass
avalanches of 1899 and 1910.

Twelve-year-old Karin and her Swedish immigrant parents live in the
railway town of Donald. Karin is ashamed of her mother’s old-country
ways and superstitions. Despite her mother’s admonitions, Karin takes
her goldstone pendant and goes to sleep with it on, hoping to dream of
the future. When confronted, Karin angrily denies borrowing and breaking
the pendant, and refuses to acknowledge any dream she may have had.
Suddenly, her mother and the goldstone are gone, swept away by an
avalanche in nearby Rogers Pass. Purely by chance, Karin later finds her
mother’s necklace. Does she dare to sleep with the goldstone around
her neck? Does it really foretell the future?

While Karin and her mother are fictional characters, John Anderson,
Karin’s father, was one of the two survivors of the second avalanche
described in the story. (The Rogers Pass slide of 1910 was the worst
disaster in the history of the CPR.) Anderson subsequently married the
Miss Eriksson of the story. Many years later, they became author Julie
Lawson’s maternal grandparents.

This skilful blending of fiction and history would appeal to students
in Grades 5 and up. It would be particularly relevant as a tie-in to the
Grade 8 history curriculum, which includes the building of the CPR.
Highly recommended.