Wild Swans by Jackie Morris

A girl loses her beloved brothers when they are turned into swans by her wicked stepmother. She embarks on a vital quest with one purpose: to find them and turn them back into boys again. But the task is complicated. She must pick nettles with her bare hands and turn them to yarn, to spin and knit into shirts for each of the eleven brothers. And all the while she cannot speak, for if she does, even so much as a whisper, it will be like a knife in the heart of each swan-boy. And so she knits in silence. And where there is silence, people will put words.

A story about love and bravery, about how to listen, and about how, when we do not listen, we hear what we wish to hear.