Anna and the Swallow Man in Mock Printz 2026

Feb 29, 2016 Bethany Miller rated it liked it

Shelves: royal

In this beautifully written debut novel, Gavriel Savit tells the haunting story of a young girl who casts her lot with a mysterious man when her father is taken by the Nazis and she is left alone. The story begins in Krakow, Poland on November 6, 1939. Anna’s father leaves her at a friend’s shop while he goes to a meeting at the university where he is works. Anna does not know it, but she will never see her father again. The next morning her father’s friend tells her she can’t stay in his shop. In this beautifully written debut novel, Gavriel Savit tells the haunting story of a young girl who casts her lot with a mysterious man when her father is taken by the Nazis and she is left alone. The story begins in Krakow, Poland on November 6, 1939. Anna’s father leaves her at a friend’s shop while he goes to a meeting at the university where he is works. Anna does not know it, but she will never see her father again. The next morning her father’s friend tells her she can’t stay in his shop. Determined to wait for her father, Anna sits down on the stoop and this is where she meets the tall thin man who she decides to follow across Poland. The man insists that they should both remain nameless as a way to keep themselves safe and insists that they only refer to each other as Daddy and Sweetie. They continue this way walking and staying hidden, and Anna learns the Swallow Man’s methods of survival as the two develop a strong, if unconventional, relationship. This relationship is tested when they meet a Jew on the run from Nazi soldiers who Anna wants to befriend, which goes against all of the rules of survival she has learned.

The most outstanding aspect of this novel is the writing, which can only be described as poetic. I found myself going back to reread certain passages just to savor the beauty of the language. The book is written from Anna’s third person limited omniscient point of view, which keeps her character somewhat at a distance from the reader though we are privy to her thoughts and feelings. Since Anna is only seven years old, this also forces the reader to read between the lines and fill in the blanks in order to fully understand the story. The characters are complex. The Swallow Man in particular is hard to pin down as either good or bad and remains shrouded in mystery throughout the book. The ending left a lot to the readers’ imagination, and personally, I would have like a little more closure. Though there is a lot to be said about the quality of the writing and the literary value of the book, the slow pace of the plot and the lyrical nature of the writing make it seem more like an adult novel than YA to me. Recommended for older teens and adults who enjoy character driven, literary, historical fiction.
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Aug 29, 2016 Christina Getrost rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

A beautifully written historical fiction novel about World War II refugees. It begins in Krakau Poland, when Anna is 7, in 1939, and her professor father disappears. She was left in the care of a merchant friend of her father's. But as time goes on and her father never returns, the merchant is too nervous to keep her and so she's on her own. Then she meets the man she dubs The Swallow Man, and together they spend the next four years wandering through Europe, always trying to stay a step ahead of ...more

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Jan 18, 2016 Barbara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural-identity, loss, facing-fears, music, names, resilience, animals, elderly-characters, community, travel

Krakow, Poland in 1939 is not a safe place for intellectuals and college professors such as Anna Lania's father who teaches linguistics. Before he is rounded up with others like him, he leaves Anna with one of his friends, but through various mistakes and assumptions, she has no way back into her apartment and ends up following a mysterious man she knows only as the Swallow Man, through the city streets and the woods. He teaches her survival skills and tells her stories while she provides compan ...more

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Feb 14, 2016 Mary rated it liked it

I wish teen authors would leave World War II behind and start writing books about contemporary wars and the their impact on contemporary teens. The Alex Award winner Girl at War by Sara Novic is such a story and it is so powerful and meaningful. World War II was awful but so is the Syrian War with families uprooted and terrible suffering.

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Jan 03, 2016 elissa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: my_10s_reads, youngadult, capitol_choices_archives, historicalfiction, war_stories

The beginning of this was very soothing, somehow, even with terrible things going on. The end became way too dark for me, and I'm not at all a fan of the way this story played out. I guess it gets somewhat more realistic, at the expense of over-riding the fairy-tale-like beginning. Unlikely that this will be on my list of favorites of the year by the time the new year rolls around.

Written by the son of a friend of a friend, which is cool, but unfortunately I'm also slightly disappointed that I d ...more

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Sep 29, 2015 Angela rated it it was amazing

Captivating and mysterious. I couldn't wait to pick this up again every time I had to put it down. Anna convincingly goes from a 7 year old to a young teen. The mystery of the Swallow Man (who is he, exactly??) kept me wondering.
I think this will be enjoyed by adults, teens and older middle grade. Much like The Book Thief. While this is much shorter and less complex by far, it has a similar distanced feeling as one young girl lives through the Holocaust.

Many thanks to the publisher for providin ...more

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