The New York Times Book Review - Elizabeth Wein
…[a] splendid debut novel…This is masterly storytelling…The book's third-person narrative voice is intelligent, confiding and personable—indeed, precocious—rather like Anna herself. From the first page, Savit makes no concession to reading level, age or target audience. He simply takes pleasure in what he's writing. I have to admit, this is the way I like it, and any potentially problematic precocity in the text is saved by his earnest, accessible voice…Little of the plot is linear. It's more anecdotal, describing habitual patterns in the lives of the two main characters as they wander and survive. But while the novel's action is simple, its emotional impact, drive, narration, character development and resolution are elaborately layered.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
02/29/2016
Anna is seven years old when the Nazis come for her linguistics professor father. In 1939 Poland, many children are left orphaned or are taken to concentration camps, but Anna finds refuge of a sort by traveling with a tall, thin man, who communicates with birds and speaks in metaphors. Anna and the Swallow Man speak in Polish, German, Russian, Yiddish, and French. Reader Corduner performs these lines with the lightest of accents, flavoring the story and never overwhelming the listener. Corduner’s gentle tone of voice makes young Anna come alive without resorting to high-pitched breathiness. His Swallow Man is mysterious but also comforting, setting up great tension in the story. In his quiet yet firm manner, the Swallow Man teaches Anna lessons of survival, some of which challenge her instincts to be honest and compassionate. Corduner handles the story deftly, simply letting Savit’s words do the work and never hamming it up in his performance. This book is more than simple historical fiction; it is almost a fable about how to live in hard times. Corduner’s performance is also more than simple narration—it is remarkable. Ages 12–up. A Knopf hardcover. (Jan.)
Publishers Weekly
★ 11/02/2015
Like Life Is Beautiful and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, this deeply moving debut novel, set in Poland and Germany during WWII, casts naïveté against the cruel backdrop of inhumanity. Late one autumn morning, seven-year-old Anna is put under the care of a pharmacist. Her father is supposed to retrieve her in a few hours, but he never returns. Cast from her caretaker’s shop, Anna has nowhere to turn until she falls in with a reluctant stranger, a tall, reticent man. Thus begins a years-long journey through the woods and beyond that draws Anna closer and closer to the strange man, who communicates with birds and speaks in metaphors (“Everything he said—even, perhaps especially, the things he left out—seemed to carry the reliable weight of truth”). In his quiet yet firm manner, the Swallow Man teaches Anna lessons of survival, some of which challenge her instincts to be honest and compassionate. Savit’s economical prose beautifully captures a child’s loss of innocence and the spiritual challenges that emerge when a safe world suddenly becomes threatening. The subject matter and gritty imagery may be too intense for some younger readers, but those knowledgeable of wartime atrocities will recognize the profundity of the bond of trust built between two strangers who become increasingly dependent on each other. Ages 12–up. Agent: Catherine Drayton, Inkwell Management. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
A New York Times Bestseller
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
“[A] splendid debut novel. . . . This is masterly storytelling.” —The New York Times
"Chilling yet tender." —People Magazine
"Savit’s economical prose beautifully captures a child’s loss of innocence and the spiritual challenges that emerge when a safe world suddenly becomes threatening." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"The third-person narrative—lyrical, fluid, with a pervasive shadow of menace—lends a folkloric feel to a graceful story steeped in history, magic, myth, and archetype; comparisons to The Book Thief are apt." —The Horn Book, Starred Review
"Savit’s novel, with its wise, philosophical narrator, has the classic feel and elegant, precise language of a book that’s been around forever." —Shelf Awareness, Starred Review
"[A] quiet exploration of love and its limits." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Starred Review
"Artful, original, insightful." —Kirkus Reviews
"A moving, thought-provoking story about coming-of-age in the midst of trauma." —Booklist
“The Book Thief. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Any book compared to both of these is in my eyes sure to have an exciting plot, be a fantastic eye opener, and have loveable characters. Anna and the Swallow Man did not disappoint. Just go and read it—it is impossible not to love." —The Guardian
“The story is powerful enough to resonate with all ages....Savit's novel, though a quick read, is a powerful one. And just like the child is follows, it has a deeper poignancy masked by its seemingly simple surface." —Mashable
"Written like a love song for language — heartbreaking and entrancing and filled with characters whose survival is intimately, sometimes tragically, tied to their love of words." —Bustle
“Exquisite.” —The Wall Street Journal
School Library Journal
12/01/2015
Gr 8 Up—In 1939 Krakow, seven-year-old Anna realizes her linguist father is not coming back from a meeting of university professors who have been summoned by the Gestapo. She can speak many languages and converse with adults, and she's able to adapt to her surroundings as Anja, Khannaleh, Anke, or whichever persona she chooses. Her father's friend, Herr Doktor Fuchsmann, becomes fearful about hiding her, so she takes to the streets, following a tall man with a doctor's bag who talks to birds. The Swallow Man's name is never learned, but the pair wander the countryside together for four years, in a story that gradually becomes less plot-based and more allegorical. There is plenty of bird imagery, suggesting the Swallow Man might be a trickster, as he swoops, nests, and eats little but dried bread. Yet there are also hints he has run from some nefarious involvement in the war and no longer wants to be "an instrument of death." Spare dialogue and elegant prose are filled with subtleties, including the language Swallow Man and Anna agree to use to keep her safe, called the "Road." Though Anna is a child at the beginning, she ages over the course of this novel, which gets darker and more violent toward the end. When Reb Hirschl, a burly and friendly Jewish man they meet in the woods, is killed and an unscrupulous doctor asks Anna to strip in exchange for medicine, it is a loss of innocence the author compares to hatching from the egg so that she will fly on her own. VERDICT More interpretive than literal, the story will generate discussion among YA readers.—Vicki Reutter, State University of New York at Cortland
JANUARY 2016 - AudioFile
Allan Corduner’s deep voice pairs well with the graceful, intelligent prose in this mesmerizing account of a girl whose life in Krakow, Poland, is altered forever by the encroaching horror of WWII. Seven years old when her father, a professor, is taken by the Nazis and too young to fend for herself, Anna is taken under the wing of the Swallow Man, an enigmatic stranger who teaches her “the ways of the road.” Crisscrossing the countryside, hiding from Germans, Russians, and Poles, the two oddly matched yet infinitely well-suited travelers are joined for a time by a Jewish musician, whose firmly held beliefs of right and wrong set the stage for an exploration of the morality of self-preservation. Corduner’s elegant, discreet voicing and measured pacing keep listeners focused on the three main characters in a wrenching coming-of-age story that will appeal to adults as well as thoughtful mature teens. S.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-11-03
After a young girl is left to fend for herself in World War II Poland, she stumbles upon an intriguing gentleman who she hopes will guide her out of the emerging chaos of war. Anna Lania is 7 at the start of this multiyear tale with its overtones of folklore and magical realism. Her linguistics-professor father is taken away by the Germans during the expulsion of intellectuals at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. A linguist herself, Anna is drawn to the language abilities and bird savvy of the Swallow Man, so named to preserve his anonymity. As they make their way together across Poland, the Swallow Man has ingenious ways of explaining their new realities to Anna via storytelling while his real activities remain an enigma until the end. Most striking here is that debut author Savit creates a young girl's world that only consists of father figures—and it is not always clear how Anna is to determine whom to trust and whether or not these relationships and how she thinks of them are ultimately safe. The eventual conclusion: human connection, however brief or imperfect, has the potential to save us all. Artful, original, insightful. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)
