girl in greenwood

The Stolen Child
by Keith Donohue

Every time I visited Amazon.com in the last several weeks, they tried to sell me this book. Finally I said to myself, "Fine, fine, I'll get it from the library."

Wow. For once, Amazon knew what I would like. This book is about a changeling - yes, a child who was stolen by hobgoblins and replaced with one of their own. The story is told in alternating chapters by the stolen child and by his hobgoblin replacement. Each of them feels alienated and lost - Original Henry bewildered by his new faerie life, and Imposter Henry trying to adjust to living in a human world but never forgetting his past as a goblin in the woods.

I thought it was particularly briliant to set this book in relatively modern times - one of the troubles that the goblin gang faces is the encroachment of human civilization on the woods that they call home. Imposter Henry's lifelong discomfort with the woods (will the goblins come back for him?) competes with his desire for a normal life in a house built in the new woodsy development.

This book doesn't really have an ending, exactly, but for once that is perfectly okay. Reading about the development of these two lives is enough. I can't wait to read what Donohue writes next.

Labels: book reports