This title is suitable for ages 6 to 12 years. When a swallow makes a promise it must be kept or the swallow dies. As autumn sets in on a Yorkshire farm, and the swallows prepare to leave, Nidae, a courageous male bird, makes a promise to ten-year-old Jamie, who is slowly dying, that he will find a cure and return with it in the spring. So begins an adventure that crosses continents, oceans and all the boundaries of emotion; fear, hope, sadness and joy, and forges a bond between a small bird, and a young island girl that is inspirational. Jill Hopkins has studied the flight of swallows. She describes with unerring accuracy their swift, low skimming over the morning meadows; the flight of the flock at a steady altitude on their annual migration; the aerobatics of the young swallows showing off and the hero's brave solo flight to the Island of Smoke. (Swallows don't like to fly long distances on their own).

 

There are 208 pages in this book. This book was published 2008 by Seven Arches Publishing .

These stories from the Portico Library have four authors: Anna Mainwaring, Paul Morris, Alison Padley-Woods, Jane Schaffer Jill Hopkins has worked as a freelance radio and newspaper reporter for 22 years. She is a BBC 'Woman's Hour' reporter for the north of England. Married to an airline pilot she has one son, and now lives in a Pennine farmhouse with dogs, cats, ducks, gees, hens, a horse and most importantly several families of swallows who make the barn their summer home.