Every once in a while, a book comes along that makes me want to buy it for all the kids I know. The Year the Swallows Came Early is one of those. A small gem.
It's a story about a little girl who has been betrayed by the one she probably loves best in the whole world, and there is so much to love about this book I find it hard to know where to start with my praise.
The main character, Eleanor (Groovy) Robinson, is a poet and a philosopher. Read her opening paragraph:
We lived in a perfect stucco house, just off the sparkly Pacific, with a lime tree in the backyard and pink and yellow roses gone wild around the picket fence. But that wasn’t enough to keep my daddy from going to jail the year I turned eleven. I told my friend, Fankie, that it was hard to tell what something was like on the inside just by looking at the outside. And that our house was like one of those See’s candies with beautiful swirled chocolate on the outside, but sometimes hiding coconut flakes on the inside, all gritty and hard, like undercooked white rice.
In this opening the author makes us several promises. She promises to deliver a thoughtful character. A little girl who looks below the surface. The author also promises to deliver a book with picturesque writing and rich metaphors. Lastly she promises to look at betrayal. She tells us that some things that look good—the perfect house, the beloved daddy—are hiding unpleasant things inside.
I'm here to tell you (to borrow a phrase Groovy's fond of) Kathryn Fitzmaurice delivers on her promises.
No surprise, that. After you read the book, you see that delivering on promises is something this author has given some thought to. The swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, delivering on their promise year after year, while the people in our lives sometimes don’t deliver what they've promised us.
She starts with that problem—people we love, the very ones who are supposed to love and protect us—let us down. They carelessly crush us underfoot, too busy chasing their own dreams and troubles to even see us. But the book is not depressing or dark.
Look at the girl on the cover.
This is a book about freedom, about victory, about abundance of life
and love. Groovy Robinson faces the truth—her parents are imperfect and they've hurt her.
But if we wait long enough and love well enough, we'll see that even those who hurt us most
are not all bad underneath—just as perfect houses and Sees candies aren't all good
underneath. The ones who fail aren't choosing to fail. They're trying to deliver. Maybe we
need to give them some room and just love them and let them deliver what they are able to
deliver. Maybe we need to forgive the broken promises and keep on living and loving.
Groovy finds that there is rhythm to the universe. The answers aren't in the stars and the heat doesn't predict earthquakes—her superstitious mother is wrong about that stuff. But the swallows return every year and that says that there are some things we can depend upon. There are things that are bigger than human betrayal. There are things that are sure and stable.
But please don't think that all this depth means the book is sermon dressed up as a novel. It's not. It's a work of art. The writing sings, the narrator's voice is wonderful, the characters struggle and grow.
Groovy is a delightful narrator, a smart girl who feels deeply and makes the reader feel, too. She has a unique and unhurried approach to life and a mind that works at categorizing and understanding her world. Her way of using food and nature to view and understand what's going on with people is fresh and brilliant and moves the book from good to great. You can't help but love Groovy. She cares about her friends, wants to do right but sometimes fails, and loves her parents. In the end she's alive and well, and though not all is right with the world, you can rest assured that all is right with Groovy. She'll roll with the punches, that girl.
The character growth in the secondary characters is also amazing. Several characters face variations of the same betrayal Groovy deals with. Betrayed by father, by mother, by a judgmental world, by a get rich quick scheme, by superstitious beliefs—these people and things didn't deliver on their promises. And in the end it wasn't all OK. Everything wasn't healed. But each character moved ahead. Each character made some step to get over the betrayal and move on.
As a reader I enjoyed the book hugely—loved the characters, loved the grace, the pace, the story. As a writer I am floored by the artistry in the book. Expect the unexpected, the horoscope reads at the beginning, and throughout the book Groovy finds that almost no one is what she expected at first glance. Everyone has hidden pockets of shade and light. I love the way Fitzmaurice painted the mother, in particular—a flawed woman full of love and strength.
I also love the depth to be found in the whole if you take time to notice the parts. I love the way all the characters' lives and struggles are woven into Groovy's story and how that helps her grow.
I think Kathryn Fitzmaurice is a name people will know very soon. The Year the Swallows Came Early will stand comfortably on the shelf next to The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, A Wrinkle in Time, and Because of Winn Dixie. I can't wait to see what the awards committees do with it.
The Year the Swallows Came Early is a beautiful book. I cannot recommend it as highly as it deserves.
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Copyright © 2009 Sally Apokedak
