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Swan Sister
Ellen's mother dreams of making a perfect home for everyone in the heart of the Suffolk countryside. Her father is preoccupied with mysterious troubles of his own. So when the swans fly over the church during the christening, grieving for their swan child, only sharp-eyed Ellen understands the terrible thing that has happened to her baby sister. But can she put right the harm that has been done?
200 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Annie Dalton
97 books99 followersAnnie grew up as an only child in the English countryside during the 1950s. Her father was not always around but when he was, he would tell her fantastical stories, often with her as the principal character. Annie missed him and his stories, which led her to the fantasy section at her local library, thus sparking life-long love of fiction.
After undertaking jobs such as waitressing, cleaning and factory work, Annie went on to study at University of Warwick and soon started writing.
Annie lives in Norfolk. She has three children, Anna, Reuben, and Maria (the inspiration for the first “Angels Unlimited” book, “Winging It”) and two grandchildren, Sophie and Isabella.
After undertaking jobs such as waitressing, cleaning and factory work, Annie went on to study at University of Warwick and soon started writing.
Annie lives in Norfolk. She has three children, Anna, Reuben, and Maria (the inspiration for the first “Angels Unlimited” book, “Winging It”) and two grandchildren, Sophie and Isabella.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 5, 2014
The cover and the blurb for Swan Sister are very misleading. It looks like it's going to be a sweet, gentle, mildly scary tale for younger readers, but it's really a grim glimpse of a dysfunctional family falling apart. Ellen is a weird misfit at school, her mother is a flighty, irritating misfit who descends into depression and her father is painfully absent and mired in his own guilt. Her little sister appears to be autistic, but the family lives in denial of her strangeness and become more and more alienated from society as a result. All of this could be unbearably depressing, but the author also gives us redemption, friendship and a happy ending of sorts.
The writing is elegant and sophisticated, a cut above most children's fiction. The supernatural, fairytale-like elements are woven seamlessly into the narrative, leaving us unsure as readers whether they are real or imagined for much of the story. In the end it doesn't matter - this is a story you can read and enjoy on many levels.
The writing is elegant and sophisticated, a cut above most children's fiction. The supernatural, fairytale-like elements are woven seamlessly into the narrative, leaving us unsure as readers whether they are real or imagined for much of the story. In the end it doesn't matter - this is a story you can read and enjoy on many levels.
June 26, 2021
Before I left for college – and so, for the first twelve years of my reading life – I didn’t have regular access to new books. This was pre-internet, pre-Am*zon; there was a tiny library in the next town, if someone would drive me, and bookshops in the city we visited maybe twice a year. I relied upon Christmas and birthday bundles of books, and re-read my stock over and over and over. It’s been said before that there’s no reading like that of childhood, when every book takes so much longer, when your choice is so much more restricted, and the view through that window feels so real. It certainly was the case for mine, because I got to know my favourites almost by heart.
‘Swan Sister’ is one of them. I own two books from my childhood by Annie Dalton, and it’s only today on reading the inside cover that I realised she wrote another seminal text of those fly-blown days, ‘Alpha Box’. I’ve never heard her name come up in the roster of key children’s authors, which is a shame. It’s doubly so considering I’ve made an effort to read some missed childhood classics this year – ‘The Dark is Rising’, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, and ‘The Secret Country’ – and found them flat and disappointing across the board. Even Eva Ibbotson’s kids’ books are, well, childish, compared to her adult offerings.
Dalton doesn’t speak down to her readers. I felt that as a kid, and I feel it now, because this book was just as readable and interesting to me at thirty-five as it was to me at ten or fifteen. It tells a simple tale about a magical child, but the protagonist is her older sister – a careful re-casting of the spiteful older sister trope, are you listening Deirdre Sullivan. The actual story is that of their father, a polluting capitalist who learns the error of his ways when his younger daughter is kidnapped by environmentalist swans. Dalton is very good at magic – that light hand of magic, where colours and sounds and portents influence the story and carry vital meaning (hi, Susan Cooper, you missed this memo). The descriptions are edible:
“These cottages hurt her eyes with their dazzling ice-cream colours, their pebbly windblown gardens full of rose-pink hollyhocks and pale golden poppies. Wherever she looked she couldn’t escape the glinting water, sunlight, shrieking white birds.”
“And in her arms, wrapped in a little bloodstained blanket, was the tiny sister who had taken so long to arrive; wide awake, wondering, her drying hair a pale floss of gold, her eyes a kitten’s milky blue. She gazed unblinkingly at Ellen, and made a creaking, thoughtful sound like an old door, her tiny starfish fingers fidgeting busily in the air.
‘Hello Lily,’ said Ellen. ‘Hello little funny, creaky Lily. I think you need oiling.’”
And, as you can see, they all have a point. They describe, but they also inform.
“Her father was always saying that the world was cruel, that nature was harsh. It gave him the excuse to do what he liked, she thought. No matter what harm it did.
‘The world isn’t cruel,’ she said, astonishing herself. ‘But it’s truthful,’ she whispered, seeing her father was no longer listening. ‘It can’t bear us to tell lies, that’s the trouble.”’
She also casually introduces diversity in the character of Misha; it’s not overdone, or inserted for representation bingo points (because they didn’t exist back then), but because it shows why Misha’s a little bit of an outsider and well-placed to be Ellen’s only friend and Girl Friday.
Annie Dalton needs to be on an episode of Backlisted. And I need to find more of her books, now I have the power of the internet at my disposal.
‘Swan Sister’ is one of them. I own two books from my childhood by Annie Dalton, and it’s only today on reading the inside cover that I realised she wrote another seminal text of those fly-blown days, ‘Alpha Box’. I’ve never heard her name come up in the roster of key children’s authors, which is a shame. It’s doubly so considering I’ve made an effort to read some missed childhood classics this year – ‘The Dark is Rising’, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, and ‘The Secret Country’ – and found them flat and disappointing across the board. Even Eva Ibbotson’s kids’ books are, well, childish, compared to her adult offerings.
Dalton doesn’t speak down to her readers. I felt that as a kid, and I feel it now, because this book was just as readable and interesting to me at thirty-five as it was to me at ten or fifteen. It tells a simple tale about a magical child, but the protagonist is her older sister – a careful re-casting of the spiteful older sister trope, are you listening Deirdre Sullivan. The actual story is that of their father, a polluting capitalist who learns the error of his ways when his younger daughter is kidnapped by environmentalist swans. Dalton is very good at magic – that light hand of magic, where colours and sounds and portents influence the story and carry vital meaning (hi, Susan Cooper, you missed this memo). The descriptions are edible:
“These cottages hurt her eyes with their dazzling ice-cream colours, their pebbly windblown gardens full of rose-pink hollyhocks and pale golden poppies. Wherever she looked she couldn’t escape the glinting water, sunlight, shrieking white birds.”
“And in her arms, wrapped in a little bloodstained blanket, was the tiny sister who had taken so long to arrive; wide awake, wondering, her drying hair a pale floss of gold, her eyes a kitten’s milky blue. She gazed unblinkingly at Ellen, and made a creaking, thoughtful sound like an old door, her tiny starfish fingers fidgeting busily in the air.
‘Hello Lily,’ said Ellen. ‘Hello little funny, creaky Lily. I think you need oiling.’”
And, as you can see, they all have a point. They describe, but they also inform.
“Her father was always saying that the world was cruel, that nature was harsh. It gave him the excuse to do what he liked, she thought. No matter what harm it did.
‘The world isn’t cruel,’ she said, astonishing herself. ‘But it’s truthful,’ she whispered, seeing her father was no longer listening. ‘It can’t bear us to tell lies, that’s the trouble.”’
She also casually introduces diversity in the character of Misha; it’s not overdone, or inserted for representation bingo points (because they didn’t exist back then), but because it shows why Misha’s a little bit of an outsider and well-placed to be Ellen’s only friend and Girl Friday.
Annie Dalton needs to be on an episode of Backlisted. And I need to find more of her books, now I have the power of the internet at my disposal.
January 10, 2011
At Lily's christening, the swans fly over the half-ruined church and cry out the wild name of their own lost child. Lily is bewitched by the swans and only her sister Ellen can save her, with the help of the strange and solitary Marsh Mary.
queued
April 17, 2024Ellen's designer mother dreams of making a perfect home for everyone in the heart of the Suffolk countryside. Her father is preoccupied with mysterious troubles of his own. So when the swans fly over the church during the christening, grieving for their swan child, only sharp-eyed Ellen understands the terrible thing that has happened to her baby sister. But can she put right the harm that has been done?ISBN 0749710659/970749710651
January 12, 2021
I never write reviews. But this is special. I remember reading this book as a child. This book had such an impact on me then and for years I often thought of it, but I had forgotten the author and title... I clearly remembered the cover. For some reason, the authors name popped into my head the other night and I immediately went searching. I just finished reading it again and it's a lovely book. As an adult, I clearly understand why I was drawn to it as a child. For anyone who might be interested in a magical story with interweaving themes of family, growing up, caring for nature and acceptance...this book is a true gem.
April 15, 2010
Cute story
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews