The epic saga is jauntily told, its chipper dialogue interspersed with vivid prose (``the sailors were singing and swarming and swinging in a forest of masts'') as a tale of true love unfolds. But the addle-pated Gilbert remembers neither his parents' names nor their address, and only the merchant's sympathetic daughter saves him from an ignominious end. But off the coast of Africa, Barbary pirates attack his ship and sell him to a greedy merchant who hopes for a large ransom from Gilbert's family.
Set ``in the year eleven hundred and something or other,'' this chapter book begins as sieve-headed Gilbert sails to the East (``Remember to come back home!'' his parents admonish him).
With twinkling good humor and high spirits, Garfield tells of the unlikely romance of a forgetful Londoner and a courageous Saracen maid.
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