[A Stranger Came Ashore] is not quite the work expected of a Carnegie winner, but it would make a lesser reputation. The hero is not young Robbie Henderson, who does some brave deeds, but Shetland. The scenery and the culture of the land, and the music of the surrounding sea, pervade the story, bringing an originality of colour to a rather conventional theme…. The writer sets the drama of the narrative effectively against the homeliness and simplicity of the island and its inhabitants, drawing the readers by degrees into a feeling of involvement in the beautifully primitive society. As an example of controlled development it could scarcely be bettered.

"'A Stranger Came Ashore'," in The Junior Bookshelf, Vol. 40, No. 2, April, 1976, p. 105.