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May 29, 2011

Nancy rated it:

The Stolen Child is a wonderful first novel told from the perspective of Henry Day, who was kidnapped by changelings as a child, and from the changeling who kidnapped Henry. The ancient changeling legend is woven into this very modern story and as the book progresses, the lives of Henry Day and the changeling who assumed his life gradually become intertwined. More than a fairy tale, this is a story about loss, loneliness, love, and finally acceptance. Highly recommended.

11 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jan 09, 2008

Tung rated it:

I don’t disguise that I’m a big geek, especially when science fiction is concerned. My Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (and Spiderman and X-Men and Batman and . . .) movie obsessions attest to my geekiness. So it is no surprise to anyone that I spent two or three years as a teenager reading only fantasy fiction. I literally read every fantasy fiction book our local library had on its shelves. It happens to be why the Harry Potter series drives me to the brink of rage: people think those awful More...

1 comment like (17 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2010

Brooke rated it:

The Stolen Child, which takes its name and inspiration from the Yeats poem, tells the story of two characters: Aniday is a human child who is stolen by changelings and lives in their world, and Henry Day is the changeling who takes his place and grows up in the real world. Both spend the next few decades struggling with their identities, as neither is at peace with the change.

The format is interesting; every other chapter flips between the two narrators. Both speak in the first perso More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2009

Whitaker rated it:

Remember that film Prelude to a Kiss? Meg Ryan gets kissed by an old man, and they swap bodies. She's stuck in his decrepit aging body and he's in her young lithe one. This book is Meg Ryan after the switcheroo.

The book looks like a pretty, fluffy urban fantasy: It is after all a story of a fairy changeling who switches places with a young boy. The changeling becomes Henry Day and grows up in his place; the young boy loses his name and becomes Aniday. But that's only its Meg Ryan su More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2007

Lola rated it:

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

What an unexpected read. I can't even remember what i was expecting when i was first intrigued by it on amazon's urging that i would love it based on another book i bought a while ago. But what i found inside its pages was not that. And at first i was disappointed because i just could not get into it, breaking into the first 50 pages was a back and forth struggle between excitement and boredom, but now that i have finished it and go back to look through it agai More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2007

Irishcoda rated it:

I really enjoy books that are "different" and tell the story well. The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue is one of those books. It's the changeling story, a tale that is not new or different at all. Henry Day, a 7 year old boy, runs away from home one day and goes into the woods. He falls asleep and awakens to find himself being kidnapped by a troup of faeries that call him "Aniday". Meanwhile, another child--one who used to be a faery and has now molded his features to match Hen More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2008

Minakshi rated it:

This is a strange, sad and beautiful novel inspired by W.B. Yeats poem "The Stolen Child" (1889) about chageling faeries. I vaguely remember reading about the Irish myths when I was younger. Interestingly, the novel touches on rational explanations for changelings: "failure to thrive," physical deformities, or mental illness in children. But Donohue's novel is about loneliness, the search for identity and belonging.

There are two narrators telling two intertwined More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2009

Kerry rated it:

I am a big fan of literature that retell or reconfigure old myths and fairy tales especially if the author can bring it into a modern setting and so I really liked the concept of The Stolen Child, a modern adaptation of the changling myth in which the fairies steal away a human child and replace it with one of their own. With all this to its credit, I should have enjoyed this book more than I did.

The Stolen Child is based on the poem by Yeats where the fairies lure a human child away More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

Anything with the title of my favorite Yeats poem will grab my attention, especially if it is indeed a novel about changelings. And I did indeed love the way Donohue wove phrases from the poem into the novel. Hell, I loved the whole novel. Let me say first off I understand how the changeling theme can be seen as a metaphor for growing up, etc., but I don't care at all about that part. That's not what held me spellbound. What grabbed me was the updating of the changeling myth. The story of Henry More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 25, 2008

Yosafbridg rated it:

"The trick of growing up is to remember to grow."
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue was inspired by the W. B. Yeats poem of the same name (which was also used in the wonderful film~in my ever so humble opinion A.I. {based on the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss})

The novel seems to be a metaphor for the strangeness of childhood; which is really the life of an outsider and growing up is learning to fit in, which some of never seem to do. I reme More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2008

doreen rated it:

I read this book all in pretty much one day, which is a feat considering work and regular day-to-day life. It's been a while since I had done that, and I have yet to have been so engrossed in a book as I was with The Stolen Child.

I had found out about the novel on NPR, and it intrigued me, so I borrowed it from the library and pretty much devoured it on sight.

Since we have two viewpoints and two stories to tell, although they both are intertwined, I couldn't help but d More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 31, 2008

Francine rated it:

What a FABULOUS book - great narrative, beautifully written, utterly captivating, a highly intelligent novel. After reading that abysmal Ken Follett book (Pillars of the Earth), I really felt like I needed something to cleanse me of that dross. Since every review I read about this book pointed towards the positive, I gave it a shot. And what a surprise - I was so completely drawn to it that I finished it in 2 days. I couldn't put it down. In fact, I didn't want it to end. I kept going back More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 22, 2007

Sammy rated it:

I hope that Donohue writes more novels after this one because if they are as unique and well-written as The Stolen Child I will be first in line to read them. With The Stolen Child being his first novel Donohue definitely does not burst quietly on to the scene. The only problem he may encounter for any future novels is that he now has set the bar pretty high for himself now. A problem not uncommon in the writing world.

What drew me to this book was the unique storyline and I was no More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2008

penelopewanders rated it:

Here as a ring.
Very strange book... not quite sure why I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought I would. While I was reading it I was intrigued by the fairy tale for adults aspect, but that isn't what would bother me - if anything I felt it didn't go far enough. The switching between the two characters chapter after chapter was effective, but perhaps due to the amnesia they suffered from, everything seemed to stay very superficial and hazy. Even the dramatic events and discoveries (th More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2011

Kelly rated it:

Light, tangy and juicy like the most perfect wild tangerine plucked in the high of summer, The Stolen Child shines brightly in it's readers hearts. the adventures of a certain Henry Day turns into withdrawals from his family after being captured by the faerie folk. Now, as Aniday, he learns the way of life for the rest of his kind and he gradually becomes accustomed to his surroundings. Meanwhile, the fake Henry Day lives out the real ones life, enjoying almost every minute of it. Fascinatin More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Joyce rated it:

I'm not a big fan of fantasy, but I was intrigued by the premise of this book: child-like creatures swap places with children. This examines two such creatures/children. A changeling, once a little boy named Gustav, decides to swap places with 7-year-old Henry Day in a place that appears to be Pennsylvania in the late 1940s. The story, told by both boys in alternating chapters follows the next 30-some years of their lives. The novel never really grabbed me and made me care about either character More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 15, 2009

Tim rated it:

It's probably not really the book's fault -- the writing wasn't bad, even if it didn't do a good job of grabbing me -- but I just couldn't get into this one. I kept it on my shelf at work for months, but always found something else to read instead. Now that I'm really into the book I'm currently reading on my lunch breaks and have another queued up, I figured it was time to throw in the towel on this one.

I feel a little guilty about it, and am not sure I gave it a really fair chanc More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

7 year old Henry Day runs away from home, hides in a hollow tree and is taken by changelings. He becomes Aniday and the changeling who takes his place becomes Henry. The book follows both their stories, skillfully interwoven, over the years. The new Henry has memories of his first human life, of playing the piano, and insists on taking lessons, showing tremendous talent from the beginning. Aniday quickly forgets his life as Henry, and struggles to learn who he was before he was taken. A won More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 27, 2009

Lizz rated it:

This book is great for anyone who is fascinated by changelings or holds fairy tales in high regard. The writing style is more "telling" than "showing," which may make the reader feel as if he is trapped in the minds of the characters. This isn't so bad with the changeling character of Anaday because his life is more adventurous and unknown to humans, but this approach falls flat with the character of Henry Day. The chapters in his voice are somewhat boring with the constan More...

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Jan 10, 2009

Kim rated it:

If you've ever read Peter Pan and detected a note of bittersweet in the story of the boy who never grew up, this book is for you. There's no direct link between Donohue's story and Barrie's, but reading this novel I was constantly thinking of the Lost Boys, transplanted from Neverland to our world and living a rough subsistence lifestyle.
The Stolen Child is the story of a boy, Henry Day, who runs away one day when he is seven years old, and is abducted by a group of hobgoblins. These cre More...

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Dec 28, 2008

Lightreads rated it:

In 1949, seven-year-old Henry Day is stolen by hobgoblins and replaced with one of their own. This is both their stories, intertwined in a double first-person narrative. The imposter Henry Day grows up, discovers his gift for music, falls in love, has a child of his own, is haunted by the memories of his time with the hobgoblins and the even more distant echoes of the autistic German boy he was a century ago, before he himself was stolen. The “real” Henry Day becomes one of the hobgoblins, agele More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

John rated it:

Great Contemporary Fantasy on Searching for One's Identity

Inspired by the W. B. Yeats poem "The Stolen Child", Keith Donohue's novel of the same title is a fine addition to the fantasy literature genre, yet told with the ample realism one expects from great works of mainstream literature.

It is truly a gripping, page-turning "bedtime story for adults", which will appeal to those familiar with novels replete with magical realism like recent bestsellers More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 13, 2011

Scott rated it:

Just your standard book about a child who gets abducted by changlings and becomes a changling, and the changling who takes his place as a human. What?

While reading the first few chapters of this book, I wanted a motivation for the changelings and to know more about why they did what they did. The author never really acknowledges their penchant for stealing children and replacing them with one of their own in any kind of moral way. In fact, this book contains little to no meta-commen More...

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Sep 07, 2010

Carmen rated it:

Keith Donohue optimizes the use of whimsy and fairytales for adults in his dark and tragic story of a young boy named Henry Day who runs away from home and gets kidnapped by a band of fairies, where one takes Henry's place in the human world and lives the life that wasn't his to begin with.

The story's theme is sort of "be careful what you wish for" because fairies are unhappy children who have run away from home. The theme and the dark, twisted fairytale notion worked well More...

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Dec 30, 2009

Andi rated it:

I love stories with a magical element that takes place in the “real” world. Perhaps that’s why “magical realism” appeals to me so much - writers like Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So when I told our local librarian this, and she pulled The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue off the shelf, I was pretty excited to find new writers in this style (can it be called a style?).

The book tells the story of Henry Day, a seven-year-old boy who is stolen by the changelings (faeries, hobg More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Oct 21, 2009

Michael rated it:

Keith Donohue’s debut novel The Stolen Child has generated a lot of praise and interest in the publishing community. After hearing the near unanimous praise for the novel, I was intrigued enough to pick it up and give it a try myself.

And was pleasantly surprised by the story.

The Stolen Child is a fairy tale for adults about two boys, both kidnapped by hobgoblins. The hobgoblins will target and kidnap a child, taking him or her into their community (think the Lost Boys fro More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2009

Sharon rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Mar 11, 2011

Pikachu rated it:

Henry Day was kidnapped by changelings at the age of seven and replaced with a faery copy of himself; a faery who was also kidnapped almost a century ago, when he was a seven year old musical prodigy in Germany. Henry Day is now called "Aniday" and his copy has assumed his shape and form, except that his musical abilities from old show through his carefully distracted disguise: he sings "like a lark" and has an eerie talent for the piano and organ that elicit awe or suspicion More...

1 comment like

Sep 14, 2010

Stacey rated it:

Very original. Gina, check this one out!

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 03, 2010

Nate's rated it:

what an odd little book...

Donohue had a lot to say about how humans take their lives for granted and the precious moments we encounter daily. He does this by placing beings in wooded areas near suburbs that pounce on vulnerable children and take their place in the human world.

Only in this story, traditions are broken. The changling remembers his backstory and follows the hobgoblin that took his place through their life.

Sometimes I wondered if Donohue wrote i More...

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