Looking for some late summer reading?
Check out The Stolen Child.
It’s been called a fairy tale for adults. I finished it on Saturday and the story has stayed with me the way good stories are supposed to.
Here’s the book description: Inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem that tempts a child from home to the waters and the wild, The Stolen Child is a modern fairy tale narrated by the child Henry Day and his double.
On a summer night, Henry Day runs away from home and hides in a hollow tree. There he is taken by the changelings-an unaging tribe of wild children who live in darkness and in secret. They spirit him away, name him Aniday, and make him one of their own. Stuck forever as a child, Aniday grows in spirit, struggling to remember the life and family he left behind. He also seeks to understand and fit in this shadow land, as modern life encroaches upon both myth and nature.
In his place, the changelings leave a double, a boy who steals Henry?s life in the world. This new Henry Day must adjust to a modern culture while hiding his true identity from the Day family. But he can?t hide his extraordinary talent for the piano (a skill the true Henry never displayed), and his dazzling performances prompt his father to suspect that the son he has raised is an imposter. As he ages 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. Of a time when he, too, had been a stolen child. Both Henry and Aniday obsessively search for who they once were before they changed places in the world.
The Stolen Child is a classic tale of leaving childhood and the search for identity. With just the right mix of fantasy and realism, Keith Donohue has created a bedtime story for adults and a literary fable of remarkable depth and strange delights.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wade,
Thanks for the recommendation. I enjoyed the tale and the style used in the telling. For me, the story stimulated some interesting reflections on family identity. I was adopted as an infant, and I appreciate and love my family. However, I have very different interests and gifts, and often felt a bit alienated. I have intentionally nurtured a strong family identity with my five children. As they are becoming adults, it’s intriguing to watch them balance their need for independence and self-expression with the family loyalty we have tried to instill.