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| The Stolen Child | 
 enlarge | Author: Keith Donohue
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (33) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 50787
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0099490595
EAN: 9780099490593
ASIN: 0099490595
Publication Date: March 1, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
| Early Buzz From Amazon.com Top Reviewers |
We queried our top 100 reviewers as of April 6 from Amazon.com, and asked them to read The Stolen Child and share their thoughts. We've included these early reviews below in the order they were received. For the sake of space, we've only included a brief excerpt of each reviewer's response. Enjoy!
Harriet Klausner: "Keith Donohue writes a great novel that will have readers debating the impact of nurturing and naturing as both Henrys adapt and adjust, but never feel whole. This is a fantastic fantasy that readers will enjoy immensely."
W. Boudville: "An updated and realistic Peter Pan. Keith Donohue has produced an exquisite first novel. Exceedingly polished prose with a compelling and original twist on a classic theme".
John Kwok: "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."
A. Joseph Haschka: "The Stolen Child is a fairy tale for adults that transcends standard fare. An ingeniously crafted tale about hobgoblins, is a coming of age story and one about identities both lost and found."
Robert Morris: "Donohue brilliantly explores all manner of themes, many of which are found in the most popular fairy tales and nursery rhymes (e.g. fear of separation from one's family, especially from parents). "
Donald Mitchell: "What would it like to be adopted and have your head full of fantasies? It might feel very much like this story. However, I think a story about an adopted child without the parallel changeling world would have been more interesting. Perhaps I lack a sense of romance and sympathy for the strivings of the dispossessed. If so, the fault is mine, not that of the story."
Joanna Daneman: "I found the writing stunningly simple and gripping. Within minutes, I was completely drawn into this book. I am a very finicky fiction reader, and I was delighted by Donohue's incredibly ability to make sensory experiences real, to make conversations flow naturally and logically--yet leading to surprise after surprise."
Charles Ashbacher: "The book moves back and forth between the two Henry's, how the substitute Henry handles his assimilation into human society and how the original adapts to the society that kidnapped him. It is an interesting story, as both "boys" have different perspectives on the life of a "growing" boy."
Lawyeraau: "This haunting and beautifully written debut novel had me compulsively turning its pages. I simply could not put it down! The author has created a fantasy world that exists on the cusp of the consciousness of humans. It is a world that is the stuff of fairy tales, only the author has turned it into one that is fitting for adults."
Gail Cooke: "It has been called magical, beguiling, remarkable, and vividly imagined. The Stolen Child is all of that, and much more. Keith Donohue's debut novel is an intriguing mix of imagination and reality, a story that reminds us of the joys of being human and the transcendency of love."
Grady Harp: "Longing to belong is but one of the essential facts of life that author Keith Donohoe weaves into his debut novel, The Stolen Child, a stunning work of fiction that brings alive an ages old myth involving faeries, hobgoblins, changelings and magical transformations to confront contemporary readers with food for thought about being careful of what you wish for!"
Lee Carlson: "The story is as much a celebration of memory as it is in belaboring its mysteries. Every character acts in concert to remind the reader of the subtlety of memory along with its power."
Daniel Jolley: "Keith Donohue has brought forth a magical debut novel full of insights into childhood and adulthood and the seemingly endless longing that largely defines both. He conjures a world of ancient legend and places it on the outskirts of modern civilization, thereby casting an insightful eye upon both."
Aisling Foster, The Times "Curious" Scotland on Sunday "A welcome addition to the field of contemporary fantasy…sparklingly quirky... Overall it is a gently redemptive parable about becoming oneself." Joanna Daneman, Top Reviewer at Amazon.com I found the writing stunningly simple and gripping. Within minutes, I was completely drawn into this book Gail Cooke, Top Reviewer at Amazon.com It has been called magical, beguiling, remarkable, and vividly imagined. The Stolen Child is all of that, and much more Lee Carlson, Top Reviewer at Amazon.com Every character acts in concert to remind the reader of the subtlety of memory along with its power Synopsis The Stolen Child is the story of Henry Day, a seven-year-old kidnapped by a strange group living in the dark forest near his home. No ordinary kidnappers, they are the fairy changelings - ageless beings whose secret community is threatened by encroaching modern life. They give Henry a new name, Aniday, and the gift of agelessness - now and forever, he will be seven years old. In keeping with folk tradition, the group has left another child in Henry's place. This changeling boy, who has morphed himself into Henry's duplicate, must adjust to a completely new way of life and hide his true identity from the Day family. But he can't hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the real Henry never displayed), and his near-perfect performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter. As he grows older the new Henry Day becomes haunted by vague but persistent memories of life in another time and place, of a German piano teacher and his prodigy. Both Henry and Aniday search obsessively for who they were before they changed places in the world. Narrated in the alternating voices of Henry Day and his double, "The Stolen Child" is a classic tale of the search for identity and leaving childhood. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue creates a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights. The result is a bedtime story for adults, which will appeal to readers charmed and captivated by such recent bestsellers as "The Time Traveler's Wife" and "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" and by the classics by Tolkien and J.M. Barrie. From the Publisher Inspired by the poem by W.B. Yeats about the common folk legend of the fairy changelings, this beguiling and truly original tale moves from contemporary America to nineteenth-century Germany and deep into humankind's most basic fantasies and fears. About the Author Keith Donohue: Keith Donohue is Director of Communications for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives, and previously worked at the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Maryland, near Washington, DC. This is his first novel.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Interesting idea that falls short August 22, 2008
I'm not one for tales about goblins et al, but when the synopsis for this book said faeries steal a young boy and make him one of them while replacing him with a changeling in the real world, I was intrigued enough to give it a read.
I never quite lost myself in this book, as the writing too often felt contrived and I was always conscious of the writer rather than those peopling the story. Perfectly composed sentences peppered the tale yet added no substance to it. The author trying too hard to prove he can write perhaps? The faeries were less other-world creatures and actually children gifted (or cursed?) with agelessness. Left to their own devices, they were a wild, squalid, sometimes savage lot. In following the lives of Aniday (child who becomes faerie) and Henry Day (changeling who becomes child) there was no bite, humour, quirks. Nothing to get your teeth into and relish. The story of Henry Day's life was dull and dragged. We learn that the faeries were all stolen human children. How the first ones became faeries and for what purpose, we never learn. Omissions in a story don't always matter, but in this case it is particularly glaring when we see that far from being a contented bunch, the faeries lead a miserable existence scrounging to survive in wretched conditions while yearning for their turn to return to the real world by way of stealing a human child they can swap places with. Physically they remain children while their minds mature, but none of them see this as a bonus. Given their ability to manipulate their body at will (make it grow, age, fashion a new face, etc.), no compelling reason came to light at their choosing to suffer a grievously deprived existence instead of simply returning to the real world, without first having to steal a child whose place they could take.
Devotees of faeries, hobgoblins, sprites, leprechaun, etc, will likely enjoy this tale. When it comes to other worlds here on earth, I'll take the delicious humour of Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men or Philip Pullman's riveting Dark Materials Trilogy any day over this half-baked idea for a story that ultimately disappointed.
 Great Contemporary Fantasy on Searching for One's Identity August 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 "Life of Pi", "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell", and "The Confessions of Max Tivoli". Whether "The Stolen Child" is a work of fantasy worthy of comparison with those by J. R. R. Tolkien - and will interest those familiar with Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" - is indeed an excellent question. I, for one, am inclined to think not, since "The Stolen Child" barely grasps at the Christian religious symbolism that occurs throughout most of Tolkien's writings.
However, in its own right, "The Stolen Child" is a fascinating, often compelling, exploration of self-awareness and personal identity, through the difficult rite of passage from childhood into adulthood. It is a far more serious, often darker, exploration of these themes, than what I recall in Neil Gaiman's recent bestsellers "American Gods" and "Anansi Boys". Those expecting the ample humor present in Gaiman's fiction will be startled by Donoghue's bleaker literary style; a style that is as well wrought as Gaiman's, heralding the advent of another fine prose stylist in fantasy literature.
Donoghue's intricately woven tale shifts back and forth between the real Henry Day and his changeling doppelganger. Seized by changelings near his rural Pennsylvanian farm, Henry Day joins their small band as Aniday - a hobgoblin blessed with eternal youth, never aging beyond his physical age of seven; but he is cursed knowing that he must await his turn as the band's newest member, before he can be transformed back into human form as a changeling sometime in the distant future. He shares in the band's many and tribulations across years and decades, enduring a bleak feral existence made tolerable only by his obsessive desire to acquire the skills of reading and writing. The changeling who becomes the adult Henry Day, rekindles old, almost forgotten, memories of a childhood in 19th Century Europe and America. Memories that are revived through his splendid piano playing in his youth--a skill absent in the real Henry Day - and a strong desire to compose great works of contemporary classical music.
Memories that shall take him eventually back to Europe in search of his own past, accompanied by his sympathetic, yet unsuspecting, bride, ignorant of his true identity. Donoghue deftly weaves between these two parallel stories, leading to a heart-wrenching, all too brief emotional climax, that is remarkable because of the author's skill in setting it up, in his terse, yet often lyrical prose. Without question, "The Stolen Child" is a remarkable contemporary twist on the changeling fantasy saga, and one worthy of a wide readership whose literary tastes range from realism to fantasy.
Good in parts. February 3, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This novel is good in parts, but there are also many bits that are uncaptivating and a little boring...
I think the author here has tried too hard to make this a 'complicated' read in the hope that this would perhaps make the whole story far better than it actually is. I managed two thirds of this book (I read about two hundred or so pages, and was left with around a hundred or so to go) before finally giving up... To have gone on would have been a chore, and as reading is supposed to be a pleasure, I thought I would choose another book of the hundred or so I have waiting.
There were moments of excitement within its pages, but I was unsure as to where it was all leading, and was not interested enough to find out... It was also a story I found to be too 'violent' in places, and at times a little disturbing - not to say at times inconsistent, for example; it is some way into the narrative before we learn that the forest children actually 'hibernate' during the wintertime, but this had not been very apparent in the early part...
Not my best read.
Good in parts. January 27, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This novel is good in parts, but there are also many bits that are uncaptivating and a little boring...
I think the author here has tried too hard to make this a 'complicated' read in the hope that this would perhaps make the whole story far better than it actually is. I managed two thirds of this book (I read about two hundred or so pages, and was left with around a hundred or so to go) before finally giving up... To have gone on would have been a chore, and as reading is supposed to be a pleasure, I thought I would choose another book of the hundred or so I have waiting.
There were moments of excitement within its pages, but I was unsure as to where it was all leading, and was not interested enough to find out... It was also a story I found to be too 'violent' in places, and at times a little disturbing - not to say at times inconsistent, for example; it is some way into the narrative before we learn that the forest children actually 'hibernate' during the wintertime, but this had not been very apparent in the early part...
Not my best read.
A book that will steal your time and reward you with wonder November 13, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This wonderful book was recommended to me by a friend. It is magical. A book about identity and love and growing up and being, a book that lives on n the mind outside the pages that bind the story. Written with the skill of a wonderful storyteller you could almost feel that maybe, just maybe, he is a changeling himself.
Magic
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