The Flight of Swans

The Flight of Swans is a book about a girl named Ryn who lives in a castle with her six brothers and her dad, the king. Everything is perfectly normal until her dad goes hunting and gets lost. He comes back later with a strange woman, who becomes queen. Everyone believes that the new queen saved Ryn’s dad, but, the truth is, she enchanted Ryn’s father and brothers into thinking that she had rescued him. The queen is making changes; she bans cloves because Ryn’s dad likes to suck on cloves while he reads. The spice would remind him of his old life, and she does not want to risk breaking her enchantment spell.

I like this book because the story is interesting. This novel is based on a fairytale called “The Wild Swans.” In both accounts, the princesses make nettle shirts for their brothers to break the spell. In the original, she doesn’t finish one of the sleeves on one of her brothers’ shirts, so he still has the wing of a swan instead of an arm. In this story, she finishes making all the shirts.

I like Ryn because she is an independent thinker; she didn’t believe that the queen saved her dad even when everyone else did.