Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
For sure, some beautiful writing and the narration of the audio is lovely. The bulk of it is monotonous. And the end? I'm not sure I know what went down. But Anna does know how to slit a throat if needed.
the writing itself was well done! nice imagery and metaphors especially through the eyes of young anna. I thought the first half of the book was a great way to see the war and confusion through the eyes of a young child but I don't really know what happens in the later half. I felt the book just ended with no concrete answers. Maybe its me just always needing at least some ends wrapped up but I honestly am just left more confused.....
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I feel haunted
Anna's intellectual professor father is taken away by the gestapo on day when she is seven. She of course doesn't realize this right away. She is left in the care of a German friend while her father has a meeting. When her father fails to return things go from bad to worse for her. The German friend doesn't want her hanging about, her father locked the apartment before he left, and Anna is left on the streets. After a couple of days she comes across the Swallow Man. He is strange and interesting and Anna decides to follow him.
Together they walk throughout Poland starting in 1939 and continuing for several years throughout the war. Swallow Man teaches Anna about life on the road and how to survive the conflict between the Germans and the Russians. Theirs is a life of hunger and walking and language. Anna's father was a language expert and taught her Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish and French. Swallow Man seems to know all of these including Bird.
As Anna grows older on the road she is exposed to more and more of the violence and death associated with war. This includes befriending a stranded Jewish man and helping him learn about the Road. It also includes some pretty terrible scenes involving Anna specifically. As the group is following behind enemy lines they survive on scavenging among the dead and Anna becomes an expert.
This is not a book for the faint of heart nor for the younger more impressionable reader. Even though Anna is seven when the book starts and probably 11 or 12 by its end, it is not a book for kids. There are some very dark aspects of this story that are simply not appropriate for younger readers nor would younger readers understand some of the implied/suggested things that happen off page. However, it is beautifully written and almost lyrical in its storytelling. The ending leaves just as many questions as the beginning and nothing is really resolved. So if you like a firm ending where all questions are answered this is not the book for you. I still have no idea who Swallow Man was or what happened to him or where Anna is headed. But that is part of the beauty and magic of the story.
Together they walk throughout Poland starting in 1939 and continuing for several years throughout the war. Swallow Man teaches Anna about life on the road and how to survive the conflict between the Germans and the Russians. Theirs is a life of hunger and walking and language. Anna's father was a language expert and taught her Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish and French. Swallow Man seems to know all of these including Bird.
As Anna grows older on the road she is exposed to more and more of the violence and death associated with war. This includes befriending a stranded Jewish man and helping him learn about the Road. It also includes some pretty terrible scenes involving Anna specifically. As the group is following behind enemy lines they survive on scavenging among the dead and Anna becomes an expert.
This is not a book for the faint of heart nor for the younger more impressionable reader. Even though Anna is seven when the book starts and probably 11 or 12 by its end, it is not a book for kids. There are some very dark aspects of this story that are simply not appropriate for younger readers nor would younger readers understand some of the implied/suggested things that happen off page. However, it is beautifully written and almost lyrical in its storytelling. The ending leaves just as many questions as the beginning and nothing is really resolved. So if you like a firm ending where all questions are answered this is not the book for you. I still have no idea who Swallow Man was or what happened to him or where Anna is headed. But that is part of the beauty and magic of the story.
This is a reserved, soft-spoken war book, a tale of survival in the midst of horror that chooses its words as carefully and elegantly as the meticulous Swallow Man of the title, communicating much of its story with silence and allusions. It is a story of abandonment and isolation and one of tentative connection. It is quietly, deeply moving.
When seven-year-old Anna's father disappears from their German-occupied Polish home near the start of World War II, she is alone. When she and an odd stranger recognize something kindred in each other, he reluctantly agrees to take her in. Or, more precisely, to take her out. His survival strategy is constant movement through the wilderness, nameless and forgettable. He teaches Anna his ways, and for four years they wander the countryside with as limited human contact as possible. Danger is everywhere, though, and ultimately unavoidable, and neither escapes the experience unscathed.
The Swallow Man was meticulous in the observation of his strategy for living in the odd, angry place that the world became in those years. He had many lessons to teach Anna, and over time his lessons began to describe the outline of the several guiding principles that governed his strategy.People are dangerous. People are necessary.
The first and perhaps most significant of these principles was this:
People are dangerous. And the more people there are in one place, the more dangerous the place becomes. This was true of buildings, of roads, of towns, and of cities. It was particularly true of the encampments and factories that seemed to be popping up everywhere in the wilderness, and the Swallow Man gave their smokestacks a wide berth whenever he saw them on the horizon.
The second principle that guided the Swallow Man was this:
Human beings are the best hope in the world of other human beings to survive. And as the number of human beings other than oneself in a particular place at a particular time approaches one, the hope of help rises exponentially.
When seven-year-old Anna's father disappears from their German-occupied Polish home near the start of World War II, she is alone. When she and an odd stranger recognize something kindred in each other, he reluctantly agrees to take her in. Or, more precisely, to take her out. His survival strategy is constant movement through the wilderness, nameless and forgettable. He teaches Anna his ways, and for four years they wander the countryside with as limited human contact as possible. Danger is everywhere, though, and ultimately unavoidable, and neither escapes the experience unscathed.
Ok, so this was totally going to be a four star book, and then it got really weird and fell apart towards the end.
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, War
Moderate: Death, Forced institutionalization
Minor: Genocide, Hate crime, Mental illness, Suicide, Death of parent
I read this book for Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 12, 2018). The story takes place mostly in Poland from the perspective of a girl named Anna. At the beginning of the story, she is 7 years old when her father, an academic professor, leaves for work one day and is taken by the Nazis to an internment camp. The friend that he leaves Anna with is unable to care for her, so she finds herself on the streets where she meets a mysterious man she calls the Swallow Man. She follows him outside of the city and that's where the adventure begins.
It's written in the 3rd person, though it is all from the perspective of this little girl. There are only a few times that the author breaks that fourth wall to explain something, such as the fate of her father early in the story. Other than that, we are only privy to her knowledge of the world around her, which is limited by what she understands.
The story covers several years of the travels of Anna and the Swallow Man, so she does grow up throughout the story. The writing doesn't change, really, to reflect that, though the conversations and interactions with others do as she physically matures. Also, her perspective of the Swallow Man changes throughout the story as she grows up, and we do see some transformation that both of these characters go through on this adventure.
The plot is pretty fast moving. They interact with various parts of the war and witness several of the well-known Holocaust events, but a lot of it is again taken from the perspective of a young girl. She refers to these factories and encampments that keep popping up that the Swallow Man tends to avoid, but concentration camps are never really named that in their travels. So, having some basic knowledge of the Holocaust can help pick up on a few of these clues.
There wasn't really any profanity that stood out, but the book did have some adult themes. As Anna's body matures, there are implications from some of the men they encounter that suggest how womanly she had become. Also, there is a scene towards the end where she has to undress in front of a man in order to obtain something she needs. While there was no touching, the whole scene made me feel uncomfortable.
Also, there is a lot of violence and death. None of it was particularly graphic, most of the violence was done off screen, but there is a lot of death, which considering it was World War II and the Holocaust in Poland, it's too be expected. It was interesting how Anna interprets the death that is happening around her.
I think, overall, it's an excellent but hard read. It's the kind of story that starts out quite light and calm and evolves into quite a dark story by the end. Definitely a good read for this particular time of the year.
It's written in the 3rd person, though it is all from the perspective of this little girl. There are only a few times that the author breaks that fourth wall to explain something, such as the fate of her father early in the story. Other than that, we are only privy to her knowledge of the world around her, which is limited by what she understands.
The story covers several years of the travels of Anna and the Swallow Man, so she does grow up throughout the story. The writing doesn't change, really, to reflect that, though the conversations and interactions with others do as she physically matures. Also, her perspective of the Swallow Man changes throughout the story as she grows up, and we do see some transformation that both of these characters go through on this adventure.
The plot is pretty fast moving. They interact with various parts of the war and witness several of the well-known Holocaust events, but a lot of it is again taken from the perspective of a young girl. She refers to these factories and encampments that keep popping up that the Swallow Man tends to avoid, but concentration camps are never really named that in their travels. So, having some basic knowledge of the Holocaust can help pick up on a few of these clues.
There wasn't really any profanity that stood out, but the book did have some adult themes. As Anna's body matures, there are implications from some of the men they encounter that suggest how womanly she had become. Also, there is a scene towards the end where she has to undress in front of a man in order to obtain something she needs. While there was no touching, the whole scene made me feel uncomfortable.
Also, there is a lot of violence and death. None of it was particularly graphic, most of the violence was done off screen, but there is a lot of death, which considering it was World War II and the Holocaust in Poland, it's too be expected. It was interesting how Anna interprets the death that is happening around her.
I think, overall, it's an excellent but hard read. It's the kind of story that starts out quite light and calm and evolves into quite a dark story by the end. Definitely a good read for this particular time of the year.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No