Whistle Down the Wind revolves around the time and place where the word teenager was invented. Swallow, a 15 year-old-girl growing up in America’s deep South in the fifties, discovers a mysterious man hiding out in a barn. When she asks who he is and the first words he utters are “Jesus Christ,” it’s as if all her prayers have been answered.

Swallow and the town’s other children vow to protect the stranger from the world that waits outside—the townspeople who are determined to catch a fugitive hiding in their midst. As fantasy and reality collide, Swallow is torn between the two and begins to discover who she is and where she is going.

Whistle Down the Wind contrasts the relentless influence of the modern world with the traditional values of the old days—something which the community at its heart yearns to return to.