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In this touching novel for ages 10+, Lucy Christopher explores the remarkable bond between a young girl, a boy and a damaged wild bird -  a relationship that will affect everyone who reads it.

While visiting her father in hospital, thirteen-year-old Isla meets Harry, the first boy to understand her and her love of the outdoors. But Harry is ill, and as his health fails, Isla is determined to help him in the only way she knows how. 

Together they watch a lone swan struggling to fly on the lake outside Harry’s window. Isla believes that if she can help the damaged swan, somehow she can help Harry. And in doing so, she embarks upon a breathtakingly magical journey of her own.

Short listed for the Waterstone's Children's Fiction Prize 2010.

Every year, Dad waits for them. He says it means the start of winter, when they arrive . . . the start of Christmas. The start of everything brilliant. When he was a boy, he would sit with Nan and Granddad in a field near the lake behind their house . . . and wait.

It was usually cold, and dark, and he says they even sat through a snowstorm once. Even then, Granddad knew when they’d arrive. Dad used to think Granddad was magical for knowing that. I can remember waiting beside that lake too, but the memory is more like a dream than something real.

The last time we all waited there together was six years ago: the winter before Nan died. The last winter the wild swans ever went to Granddad’s lake. All of us were huddled by the edge of the water, and the blankets wrapped around my shoulders smelt like dusty drawers. Nan pushed a cheese sandwich into my hand and Granddad passed around mugs of hot chocolate. I was sleepy and still, but I kept my eyes open.

And then they came, appearing like something from a fairy tale. It was as if they’d sprung from the clouds themselves. The dawn light glinted on them . . . made them seem so white. Silver almost. Their wings made the air hum. I still remember Dad’s face as he watched them. His wide eyes. The way he bit the edge of his lip, as though he was

anxious the birds might not make it. When they began to circle down to the lake, Dad leant forward a little as if he was imagining doing the landing himself.

I loved them, even then. Just like Dad. But they scared me too. The way they arrived out of nowhere, and so many of them. It was as if we’d dreamt them. As if they’d come from another world.

And this year it starts like that again. With Dad excited and rapping on my door. With the swans arriving . . . and everything changing.