#21 The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

This book was a present and since it's about faeries, I was happy to make reading it a priority.



This is the story of some hobgoblins, or changelings, little, wild, faerie children who roam the woods in packs and after much study and employment of magic, steal a child, and send one of their own to take its place. They assume their shape and voice and take over their life and never go back to being a faerie. This narrative alternates between the changeling who has assumed human shape and the human being who is now frozen as a seven year-old living among the other magical forest children who have all forgotten who they used to be. Both characters find it nearly impossible to be accepted into their new lives and eventually begin trying to rediscover the people they were actually born to become and learn their stories.

This was a very nice little read. I know that sounds a little patronizing, but it's true. The dilemmas are deeply important to the characters, but because of the dual narrative, we are never led to believe that catastrophe is an imminent threat to either of them and the conflicts are present and feel very important, but not epic. It is also a very well-crafted and interesting faerie tale. I really enjoyed the language, although the dialogue was often a little dry. But the story was pretty cool and it was nice to see the way the two lives progressed.

Still I can't help but ask questions, such as when did this whole changeling thing start? Where does their magic come from? If there are hobgoblins why aren't there other faeries? I ask these questions, but this never pretends to be the type of book that's going to answer them. So it's really just my impetuous nature that's bringing these things up.

I guess overall, yeah, this was a fun little read. I might recommend it to my little sister and other people who like faerie stories.

posted by brettish @ 3:41 PM