A book I highly recommend: "The Stolen Child" by Keith Donohue.

[elocs]

http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1801

From the jacket:

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.

I am actually listening to it read on cd by 2 different readers while I take my daily walk and so it makes me anxious to get out there and exercise. The bad thing is that tomorrow I will listen to the final cd. How I wish there were more because I have a hard time finding a good book because I kind of like classic sci fi and some fantasy and so often I find a book it will be volume 2 of 4 and I cannot find the first one.

The back of it says: "A fresh take on the search for identity that will appeal to the fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and J.M. Barrie."

[Writer]

1. Good book, but the ending sucked. n/t

[elocs]

2. OK, you must have missed the part in my post where I said I will finish it tomorrow.

It's nice to know that you think it sucked, NOW.

On edit: it did average 4/5 stars on Amazon with 284 reviews and nearly half gave it 5 stars, so it can't be that bad. I really have enjoyed the characters in it.

[murielm99]

3. I thought I was the only one who had read and enjoyed that

book.

I tried to talk to several people about it and they gave me blank looks. That book has stayed with me.

[elocs]

4. Since I will listen to the final cd today, I hopefully thank you. n/t

[elocs]

5. OK, I finished the book and I was satisfied with the ending.

I didn't think it sucked at all. In fact, I would enjoy reading more about Anaday and Speck.

[litlady]

6. The entire freshman class read this book...

We taught the book and the author came to speak etc. Some of my students really liked it and others didn't like it at all.