Ages 6 to 12 years. When a swallow makes a promise it must be kept or the swallow dies. As autumn sets in on a Yorkshire farm, and the swallows prepare to leave, Nidae, a courageous male bird, makes a promise to ten-year-old Jamie, who is slowly dying, that he will find a cure and return with it in the spring. So begins an adventure that crosses continents, oceans and all the boundaries of emotion; fear, hope, sadness and joy, and forges a bond between a small bird, and a young island girl that is inspirational. Jill Hopkins has studied the flight of swallows. She describes with unerring accuracy their swift, low skimming over the morning meadows; the flight of the flock at a steady altitude on their annual migration; the aerobatics of the young swallows showing off and the hero's brave solo flight to the Island of Smoke. (Swallows don't like to fly long distances on their own).