But Skylar finds help in her strong grandmother, kind priest-counselor, and later her new friends Tasha, Naomi, Margaret, D.J., and Shawn.

Mrs. Vargas, Skylar's summer school English teacher, reads stories and poems for class discussion and essays.

The following are mentioned and become part of the plot: Kirkus Reviews rated Calling the Swan "one and a half hankies" and referred to the novel as a "piercingly sad tale of a haunted family".

[1] Publishers Weekly similarly praised Thesman's ability to "expert[ly] control" the narrative so "the reader's grasp of the exact nature of Skylar's tragedy develops in parallel to Skylar's own ability to articulate what has happened".

They concluded they review by the calling the novel "hopeful without being sugar-coated" and indicating that it "ffers compassionate insight into loss".