Changeling

By Philippa Gregory

'Attractive characters, several layers of mystery and, as one might expect, meticulously researched historical detail.' Daily Mail
'A great read. Appealing characters and detailed historical setting.' Kiss
'Romping and intriguing' The Daily Telegraph

The year is 1453, and all signs point to it being the end of the world.

Accused of heresy and expelled from his monastery, handsome seventeen-year-old, Luca Vero, is recruited by a mysterious stranger to record the end of times across Europe and travel to the very frontier of good and evil.

Isolde, a seventeen-year-old Lady Abbess, has been trapped in a nunnery by her brother to prevent her claiming a rich inheritance. But when the nuns in Isolde's care show signs of maddness, she's accused of witchcraft and outisde the abby a pyre is being built to burn her for her wickedness. Luca is sent to investigate and all the evidence points to Isolde's criminal guilt, but is there something more sinister behind the maddness? 

Forced to face the greatest fears of the dark ages - black magic, werewolves, madness - Luca and Isolde embark on a search for truth, their own destinies, and even love as they take the unknown ways to the real historical figure who defends the boundaries of Christendom and holds the secrets of the Order of Darkness.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: May 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9780857077332

Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory is the author of many New York Times bestselling novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, and is a recognized authority on women’s history. Many of her works have been adapted for the screen including The Other Boleyn Girl. She graduated from the University of Sussex and received a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent. She holds honorary degrees from Teesside University and the University of Sussex. She is a fellow of the Universities of Sussex and Cardiff and was awarded the 2016 Harrogate Festival Award for Contribution to Historical Fiction. She is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She was awarded a CBE title for services to literature and charity in 2022. She welcomes visitors to her website PhilippaGregory.com.

Reviews for Changeling

[decaturmamaof2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I never read this as a child, but I totally devoured it as an adult. Really well-done and stands the test of time. Martha's and Ivy's characterizations are so subtle yet vivid. And Alton Raible's illustrations of this edition really enhance the story.

[tatiannasilverness · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Changeling is about two girls, Ivy Carson and Martha, who have make believe adventures. Ivy believes she is a changeling, which is a magical creature that has replaced an infant in another family. Ivy lives with another relative for most of the time and when she doesn't she lives with her parents in the same town as Martha. Ivy moves around as they grow up. Martha and Ivy have many adventures in the woods, which they call their kingdom. However, when Ivy must leave, she and Martha fight. Martha loses her best friend in the world and only gets her back after many years when Ivy returns. This shows that the theme is friendship is important and to be cherished. This book brings joy to all that read it and memories of childhoods. One major strength of this book is that it is written with clever and well thought out layers. The top layer is a fantasy of elves, witches, and, of course, changelings. But underneath, it is a story of a friendship between two girls that is very heartwarming. A weakness of this book is that the second layer isn't very clear. It can only be seen after lots of thought and even then it isn't certain that there even is a second layer. But the lesson is taught through the second layer, and without the second layer, there would be no theme. I liked the Changeling. It's for all ages and I would definitely reccomend it.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think I may have read this as a child - I know I read others by Snyder, and the Sch. mm pb cover looks familiar.  I think it may have had a subtle influence on me, and helped me to survive adolescence, just as knowing Ivy helped Martha (and, probably, vice versa).  In any case, it's one of Snyder's best (at least among those I've read, and imo) and that's high praise.  Beautifully written, gorgeous story.  How does one cope with being unlike one's family and peers?  How does one get along when nobody else cares?  How does one face growing up, when an imperfect childhood seems better than getting boring, responsible, and solid?

Btw, the Tree People game here is developed further in Snyder's Below the Root.  And the very best Ive read by Snyder is the very short The Princess and the Giants, which is dependent on its illustrations and is therefore sometimes dismissed as 'just a picture-book.'  I must try harder to find more by the author, as I see by her page here that she is much more prolific than I realized.

"

[sophroniaborgia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Martha and Ivy are two girls whose lives couldn't be more different. Martha is the misfit daughter of a prominent and successful family who, unable to find a place for herself in their high-achieving world, spends her time daydreaming and crying when confronted. Ivy comes from a family of drunks, delinquents and criminals, but spent her early childhood living with her aunt, who introduced her to magic and wonder. When the two meet at age seven, their creativity and imagination make them fast friends despite their backgrounds. Their friendship proves to be a buoy for them both as they grow to high school age, helping them to overcome challenges and separations until at last they realize their dreams.Zilpha Keatley Snyder was a wonderful children's writer who knew the power of imagination and how freeing it could be for kids who feel disconnected from the people and places around them. But she never forgets the real friendship that underlies the tales. It's the friendship between the girls, strengthened by their years developing the fantasy stories of the Tree People, that allow them to mature into people who will never be conventional but will be able to thrive in the world.

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[satyridae · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[saroz_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my very favorite children's books. Martha - a shy, withdrawn girl - befriends her next door neighbor, Ivy, who is anything but quiet. They grow up together, their friendship shifting and changing and ultimately fracturing over the years, but with the glue of Ivy's imagination always bringing them together. A lightly fantastical book, similar to but far better than (and written before) "Bridge to Terabithia." As always, Snyder has a great grasp on how children think, and the 'message' doesn't overpower the story. Also notable for having spawned Snyder's "Below the Root" series, which appears here as one of Ivy's imaginary worlds...

[lssian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the best books I ever read as a kid, I don't know how many times I read it. I love Snyder, and still reread her books to this day. This one in particular is a wonderful book about being yourself and bring brave about it - but never in an overt, Lifetime movie preachy way. I just know that this book gave me inspiration about just being me and ignoring social pressure. Highly recommended, especially for children.