| Title | : | The Changeling |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0595321801 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780595321803 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 228 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1970 |
| Awards | : | Vermont Golden Dome Book Award (1972), NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature (2013) |
The Changeling Reviews
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If you've ever flirted with the possibility of taking on a reading challenge or a reading project (either self-imposed or group generated), I can't be enthusiastic enough in encouraging you to do so.
My self-imposed “70 from the 70s” project (my third reading project in two years), that I started this past summer, has introduced me to three new writers who have quickly become “top 10” favorites of mine and has also opened the door to several handfuls of riveting “new” reads.
Zilpha Keatley Snyder is one of these three “new” writers.
Even though Ms. Snyder lived to be almost 90-years-old and wrote FORTY-SIX books between 1964 and 2011, I wasn't familiar with her, until about two years ago, when some Goodreads friends put her on my radar (thank you!).
Wow. When I think of how much nonsense I read in my school library while these books lurked in the background. . .
As far as I'm concerned, Ms. Snyder's books are right up there with Beverly Cleary's and Judy Blume's.
She has a rare gift of turning a middle grades read into a young adult read (there is a strong distinction between these two genres that is often overlooked on here), and an even more rare gift of making all of her reads as appealing to the adult as to the child.
I know this may feel like a cryptic reading response, but I'm not sure that I can go any further with this work of fiction without either spoiling it for you or bursting out crying.
Let's just say that Ms. Snyder explores class differences and generational poverty here, and when one girl named Ivy can't bear the weight of being made to feel “low class” and “worthless,” she embraces the idea that she is a changeling, a child switched at birth by some enchanted folk.
And now I'm a changeling. I'm forever changed by this story. -
This is a wonderful book, we were instantly drawn in to the story, the characters, the plot, the friendship, the imaginary games, all really appealed to us.
Two seven year old girls meet and they are from contrasting backgrounds. Martha's family is highly respectable whereas Ivy's family have problems, mum drinks too much, brothers in jail etc. Ivy has an Aunt who sometimes looks after her when things get bad, she sounds lovely, but poor Martha, despite their outward show of respectability, her family ridicule and neglect her and care more about what others think than if Martha is happy. I appreciated this author's awareness that behind the facade of respectability, the wealthy family were awful to their children in other ways.
The story focuses on the girls friendship and imaginary play, they spend their time outdoors and make a world of their own. I loved this, and just as this book shows children are pressured into appearing to be grown up and not behaving like children, what could be more natural and healthy than 7yr olds playing imaginary games ? The character of Kelly is a good example in my opinion of what happens to children who don't do this, there is a character like Kelly in most schools unfortunately. The observations of this character were accurate and how true that adults and teachers often are mislead by the chatty, popular, Kellys of this world.
We loved the way the girls were so caring to each other, and helped each other stand up to the bullies, how they also cared for animals and tried to help and rescue ones in need of help.
This was a 5 star story for us, but although the climax was fitting for the story The ending was good but it seemed as though several years were condensed into a chapter or two.
Ending problems aside this was a beautiful book, and the girls thoughts on the term 'changeling' was an appropriate ending for the story. -
“Know all the Questions, but not the Answers
Look for the Different, instead of the Same
Never Walk where there's room for Running
Don't do anything that can't be a Game”
― Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Changeling
Just..one of the best. What a writer! The Changeling remains, along with "The Velvet room", another one by this author, one of my all time faves.
Have you ever felt like a "Changeling"? Did you feel like when in childhood? Even for a moment? I think most of us have.
In the case of Ivy and Martha..WELL..I am not going to say! This book is a celebration of Martha, of Ivy and all the Changelings here, there and everywhere.
It is worth noting, if you missed this one in childhood no matter. I did a reread recently..the person who had it before me had written in the book "This is a good book!". I do not even know that person.
So then I reread, loaned it to a friend and she loved it too.
The Changeling transcends age and time. Will always be a classic. -
Buddy read with Hilary, here's
Hilary's Review (it's better than mine :D)
It may not be obvious from title and the blurb, but this story is not Fantasy, nor Magical Realism.
Even as a kid I was not much of a reader of realistic fiction, I preferred Fantasy stories. But there were a few exceptions, and I think this would have been one of them, if I'd read it as a young person. Since I've read books by this author before, including another that is realistic fiction,
The Velvet Room (which was one of my favorites as a kid), I was not surprised how well she really captures the thoughts and feelings of childhood, the experience from the perspective of a kid, but I was very delighted by it here.
This story really captures how magical shared imagination is in childhood with a good friend. The make-believe, the magical thinking - even when knowing it's make believe, the close bond of friendship and how impactful that can be, helping to shape who we grow up to be.
For parents: -
The Book Gods sent THE CHANGELING to me at precisely the right time in life. I was a lonely little girl who loved to dream, hated sports, and cried easily. Not surprisingly, I was widely hated by my peers, and sought refuge in books. And while I loved being transported to magical places like Oz and Narnia, I was intensely aware that these books had little bearing on "real life."
THE CHANGELING was different. It was about a young girl growing up in a status-conscious family. Her older brother and sister were terribly popular, while her parents were successful and sophisticated. Naturally, Martha feels like an ugly duckling surrounded by swans. Then Ivy Carson comes to town. Ivy's family is utterly disreputable and lets her run wild. Soon, Ivy recruits Martha as her best friend, confiding that she's actually not a Carson, but a changeling -- an child of magical origin who was switched at birth. Soon, the girls are performing witchy ceremonies and create a fantasy realm to which they escape on a regular basis. Not surprisingly, their friendship becomes a lightning rod for school bullies, and is nearly torn apart when Ivy is forced to admit that she isn't a changeling, but an ordinary girl who can't vanquish her real-life enemies.
Although I was disappointed that Ivy wasn't truly a changeling, I took comfort in this story, which depicts a girl who uses the idea of magic to realize her creative talent. It's beautiful to see how Ivy's friendship transforms Martha into a shy mouse into a talented actress. If that's not magic, I don't know what is.
This book is also beautifully illustrated by Alton Raible. It's lovely to see an illustrator that perfectly captures the spirit of a book. I wish more books had interior illustrations...this seems to becoming a lost art.
Thank heavens somebody had the sense to put this book back in print. It's a real gem and deserves your time if you're seeking to make a personal transformation of your own. -
Writing a review for this treasured volume from my childhood seems impossible. Since first making the attempt, I have spent hours staring at the blank screen in front of me, have begun in a hundred different ways - "Some books aren't books at all, but mirrors..." / "Zilpha Keatley Snyder may not know it, but she wrote this book about me..." - but have always ended with the same admission of failure, with the same deletion of whatever facile comments I had typed, whatever little bits of text I had produced - text that had inevitably failed to capture the terrible beauty and power of The Changeling, its strange and elusive appeal, its unshakable hold on me. I am haunted by this book, and although I pride myself on being able to articulate even the most difficult of thoughts and emotions, I find it impossible to say why. Just as it once saved me, this seemingly simple children's novel now defeats me. Again and again. I am too close to it, perhaps...
I grew up in a beautiful old house on a hill, with a rundown old carriage house behind it, where my sisters and I were wont to play in younger days. A dreamer, always, I lived in my own world, dividing my time between the pages of whatever book I was devouring, and my imaginary (year-round) outdoor games. Naturally, I had a country of my own - ironically, given my childhood ignorance of the word "arcane," it was named Arcania - with its own intricate history, customs and culture. I spent hours creating the Arcanian language, and crafting its script (sadly, all lost to me today), with its superfluity of vowel forms. Arcania was my retreat and my stronghold, in a world that was beginning - just as I was starting to search for meaning in it - to make no sense, and was as real to me as anything I experienced in my more mundane, "workday" life.
No author has ever captured - for me - that reality of the imaginary, that power of childhood make-believe, with the same skill as Zilpha Keatly Snyder, in The Changeling. The story of two very different young girls - shy crybaby Martha, so worried about fitting in with her successful family, and wildly idiosyncratic Ivy Carson, daughter of the town's local criminal element - whose friendship is the salvation of both, it perfectly embodies one of the key realities of my own childhood: the role of imagination, and of the internal world, in creating a safe place in a decidedly unsafe existence. Like Ivy and Martha, whose created world was known as Green Sky - a world that Snyder would later use, in creating her brilliant dystopian Green Sky trilogy (
Below the Root,
And All Between,
Until the Celebration) - I too enacted a complicated series of rituals and plays surrounding my imagined world. Like them, this had extraordinary meaning for me, and is, to this day, terribly precious to me.
One of my favorite works of literature, of ANY kind, The Changeling is a book that has become entwined with my memories of my childhood, to the point that I cannot separate it out. I have lived in this book, as surely as Ivy and Martha did, and while I wouldn't venture to guarantee that it will speak to every young reader as it did (and does) to me, can readily attest to the fact that every word in it is true. -
Two very different girls share a secret place in the trees.
(photo by Lisa Kimmell) -
A quite lovely short novel from the 70s by a children’s writer I hadn’t heard of before. From the title I thought it would be fantasy, but it’s about the friendship between protagonist Martha, who comes from a middle-class family but feels like an outsider, and Ivy, who belongs to the town’s most notoriously wrong-side-of-the-tracks family. When the girls meet at age 7, they begin an intense friendship involving elaborate games of make-believe. Ivy declares she’s actually a changeling, and Martha is eager to believe it. Over the years, their friendship is challenged as Martha adjusts to the world around her and Ivy remains an outsider. 3.5
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Just stumbled upon this book by accident, thank you, Goodreads! Have been trying to remember the title for the longest time! I read this several times in grade school, it fascinated me! Ivy Carson is from a, well, trashy family, but she herself is very different. She tells the mousy Martha who is her best friend that she is the daughter of the fairy queen, and has been switched with the real Ivy Carson. Ivy is a gifted but unschooled dancer, with wild black hair and capricious moods. She reminded me, in a way, of my own best friend in junior high. There is something timeless and beautiful about this book, and how Ivy and Martha change over the years. I just adored this little book, and I should find a copy for my daughter, when she's a bit older.
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A quickie from 1970, this YA book so beautifully depicts what a friendship between young and pre-teen girls looks like.
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This is the book that first introduced me to Zilpha Keatley Snyder, who was my absolute favorite author as a kid. This book is not a fantasy, but it did inspire a fantasy series, the excellent Green Sky trilogy. Marty "the mouse" becomes friends with Ivy Carson, an unusual girl from a large and notorious family, who claims to be a changeling. I really can't do the book justice, but I think anyone who's felt like an outcast, or had a life-changing friendship (or wanted one) will love this book.
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Martha and Ivy are best friends. Can their friendship survive Ivy's frequent moves, Martha's judgmental Grandma and bullies at school? According to Ivy, magic might be just the solution.
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The spell for never growing up:
Know all the Questions, but not the Answers--Look for the Different instead of the Same--Never Walk where there's Room for Running--Don't do anything that can't be a Game.
"--maybe you can grow up if you want to. I can't."--Ivy Carson, The Changeling
Oh, this was good, except I wish I had read it as a 12 year old! Two girls from very different families become fast friends. The story follows them from age 7 to age 16. The younger years got kind of boring to me with all the magical thinking, but the teen years got very interesting. The end was very sweet and actually made me a bit misty eyed. -
read this just out of my teens, and loved it to pieces. My paperback is falling apart, alas, so I have not reread it for some twenty years. So I don't know how it holds up to my adult view, but the friendship, the approach to being different and creativity were impressive to me when young.
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One of my all-time favorite books and a big influence on my *everything*.
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Might be ZKS' best. It's certainly one of my favorites and certainly one of her most sophisticated. The girl friendship/coming of age theme is nothing new, but if ZKS had written for an adult audience, she could have been the Elena Ferrante of her time.
ZKS creates that perfect blend of mostly realism, with just a whisper of magic. I would still love to join Martha and Ivy and the Tree People at Bent Oaks Grove.
I had forgotten (or maybe my childhood self didn't quite get) just how funny young Martha and Ivy are. The porkchop/paint scene and the attempted rescue of Dolly are hysterical.
Although my heart aches for Ivy, I am so impressed with how ZKS captures Martha's social anxiety and introverted nature: "...but a lot of things that seemed as simple as breathing to other people, still seemed as far away as the stars for Martha."
In an interesting way, the climactic reveal with Tom is both dated and not dated. -
It's too bad that it never got to the part about her being a changeling and it was only about the human side of things. Does anyone know which kind of faeries she was descended from?
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I don't remember when I first read this book. I think I got it from the Scholastic Book Company when I was in second grade (1971 or 1972); we lived in a very rural area in northern New Mexico and my mother basically allowed me to order every book I wanted when the Scholastic catalog came. I know I then read it many, many times over the years that followed... and then, of course, at some point it got packed away with the rest of my "kid's books" and I haven't touched it in ages.
But now, as it goes, I'm "old enough for fairy tales again" (not that I really ever stopped - I'm not a Gryffindor for nothing), and I found it again when I was recommended other books by Keatley-Snyder. While looking those up, I found "The Changeling" again.
I knew this book had been very formative for my young mind, I just had forgotten quite how MUCH. I was Martha -- chubby, frightened of everything, burst into tears at the slightest thing; the main difference was I was the oldest child in the family, and, of course, I never had an Ivy.
I wanted to be like Martha when I was young, because I was sure I would grow up like she did, tall and slim and loved by everyone... but I never made it THERE. I stayed chubby, but I did end up in all the plays in high school, as a character actor. I made up stories, I wrote them down, I dreamed and wished and never wanted to grow up (and really, that spell DOES work)... I never got thin, but I eventually met my own "Ivy." I didn't meet her early enough to dream with me on that childhood level, but we plan on growing old together, if possibly never grown UP together (because she loved the book, too).
I know I don't say a whole lot about the actual book here, but my review is based on feelings and impressions rather than the events in the story. Needless to say, it still holds up just as beautifully as it did then -- sure, now it only took me about two hours to read instead of weeks... but I still lost myself just as deeply within the beautiful lines that Keatley-Snyder wove here. I only wish I could be as brilliant a storyteller (not to say I don't TRY).
I still love this book - I love the story, the characters, my feelings and impressions when I read it and how it makes me feel afterward. Beautiful, dreamy, mystic, alien, lost, found, sure of myself, unsure, scared, exhilarated, joyous... everything. Everything. I think this book may have been everything to my growing up. I've never lost it.
Know all the questions, but never the answers. -
If Martha Abbott was alive today, she'd be in her mid-50s, give or take a few years. I wonder what happened to her after that fateful sophomore year? I'm sure, in fact I hope, that she didn't marry Rufus. That she moved to New York City, and became a Broadway actress. Hung out with Andy Warhol, went to Studio 54. In the late 80s, she gave it all up and moved to Vermont, where she opened a small theater that did summer stock. Or maybe an acting school. In her 50s, she's made a comeback on Broadway. Or she's doing voice over work for an animated superhero series. Or she starred in Company as Joanne. Or more likely, she moved to San Francisco, where she had lots of gay friends who died of AIDs in the 80s, became politically active, started an underground theater group, married the guy of her dreams, had some fabulous children, outshone Cath and Tom (who are in their sixties now; her parents are at least in their 80s, probably in their 90s). Ivy became a modern ballet dancer, moved to New York. Or Paris. Had a string of lovers. Flirted with bisexuality. Knew and was known by everyone. Currently writing her memoir, where she will reveal everything. Kelly Peters is fat and lives in Modesto.
The Changeling is a really terrific book, and hasn't really grown stale with age. It's still just as poignant as when I first read it, so many years ago. -
This, along with The Egypt Game, is one my favorite Zilpha Keatley Snyder books. It's just a beautiful story about the changing friendship between two girls--Martha, who is painfully shy, and Ivy, the unique child of a nomadic family. This book made me want to stay age 11 forever, just to experience the freedom of childhood that these girls did.
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Chubby, mousy Martha's childhood best friend is Ivy, daughter from a no-good family who claims to be a changeling. This has an episodic structure that threatens to be overbearing: the adventures of two imaginative outsiders are charming, evocative, sympathetic, but also frivolous. It's the cumulative effect which matters more, and while Martha's arc is dated (fat reader surrogates are fantastic; fat reader surrogates who lose weight while gaining confidence is problematic) her emotional growth still resonates and the relationship between the girls has sincere chemistry. Ivy is by far the more interesting, dynamic character; Martha is a conservative PoV choice, but Snyder's compassion prevents Ivy's story from becoming a morality lesson and off-centering the most thoughtful parts of the narrative is something I suspect would age well with the reader. I would have liked this more as a younger reader; the restrained, episodic style means there's nothing especially engaging for an incoming adult reader. But I think I would have liked it very much indeed, and still appreciate Snyder's humor and humanity.
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I loved this book so much as a child and was a bit nervous to reread it, as many of my favorites have not held up well. But this did! I have zero qualms about passing to my own children and I hope they too will feel a sense of kinship with these girls.
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I accidentally deleted my review, but I do remember that this was a coming-of-age story with an interesting twist. And the girls both had strong imaginations, which I value.
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This was one of my absolute favorite books when I was a kid!
I should read it again. -
Loved this book as a kid. I thought it was about magic.
I took all my books out of my parents' house and am re-reading them.
I discovered this book is actually about class and friendships. It's well done and the ending is pitch perfect. -
I read this book for the first time as an adult, despite knowing about it since I was a kid, and my first thought was "Why didn't I ever read this when I was in middle school?" I went through something similar as Martha, and my bully was also named Kelly. I also liked making up stories and lived in a bit of a fantasy world as a kid. I felt like this book really told a great story of what it's like to be a kid.
The main story revolves around a friendship between two girls, Martha and Ivy. Martha comes from a upper middle class family, and Ivy comes from a sketchier background. Ivy has many siblings and her family is always taking up and leaving at random, usually because someone in the family has gotten into some trouble. Martha's family doesn't approve of Ivy and discourages her from spending time with Ivy.
Martha ends up hanging out with Ivy in most of her spare time anyway, and they invent elaborate fantasy stories. Ivy claims to be a "changeling," which is a baby born to a magical being and is switched at birth with a human baby. Considering how unusual Ivy is compared to most everyone else Martha knows, she figures Ivy just might be telling the truth.
Martha has a neighbor, Kelly, who is the most popular girl in their class and likes to give Martha a hard time. With Ivy's help, Martha is able to gain more confidence throughout the story.
I would recommend this book to anyone. It may have been written for children and teenagers, but I think most people could find something to relate to in the characters. A very well-written book and completely deserving of the awards it won. -
Zilpha Keatley Snyder was one of my favorite authors back in middle school when I started reading like crazy. In fact, The Velvet Room, is my all time favorite from that time. I was recently reminded of that fact and was considering re-reading it, but was afraid it would be a bit disappointing as an adult. As a trial, I picked another book of hers I remembered enjoying and figured if I still liked that as much, I would read Velvet Room again. Sadly, the Changeling was good but not great, at least from an adult point of view. It does have good messages for kids and the story isn't bad, but it just wasn't as engaging as I remembered it. Interestingly, my recollection of this book was that it was entirely fantasy, when in fact the "fantasy" portion is actually the real children's make believe and is a very small portion of the story. Apparently over time my mind substantially over-inflated the part I liked best. Consensus: I think I'll keep my love for The Velvet Room a much cherished memory.
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This was one of my favorite books when I was 9 or 10. I came across my copy (hardcover, missing dust jacket, well-loved, original artwork) while cleaning over the weekend and had to reread it. Surprisingly, it held up and I enjoyed it just as much as I did as a kid. Maybe more so, because I picked up on little nuances and details I'd missed when I was younger simply because I didn't yet have enough maturity or life experience. This doesn't happen often (
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It's a simple story, really. Two girls, their friendship over the years of their childhood. But there is magic in it, too. Magic in the story, and in the reshaping of their realities into what they wanted, and needed, them to be, and magic in their friendship. This is a beautiful book about the power of imagination, and female friendship, and those crazy years between being a kid and being a teenager. Martha is every kid who feels like they don't belong and Ivy is the one kid who has never been concerned with belonging. I think Ivy is the kid adults wish they had been... not in such a hurry to grow up, continuing to believe in magic long after most had given it up, and who dreams and runs and dances with joy and without caring what the world thinks. I read this with my 11 year-old daughter and I want those things for her. To have an Ivy or to BE an Ivy. To play and dream and create and to just be a kid, as long as possible.
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A re-read. Snyder's sure hand at the wheel gives this story a ring of truth and an immediacy flavored with the not-quite-supernatural. When I read it as a kid, I identified so closely with Ivy that I fancied myself a changeling too. Reading it as an adult, I have much more insight into both Ivy and me, and I still identify with her. I want to know what happened to her, where she's dancing now. A lovely, transcendent book.
