The Changeling

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Alton Raible (Illustrator)

Ivy Carson belonged to the notorious Carson family, which lived in a run-down house in suburban Rosewood. But Ivy was not a typical Carson. There was something wonderful about her. Ivy explained it by saying that she was a changeling, a child of supernatural parents who had been exchanged for the real Ivy Carson at birth. This classic book was first published in 1970. It was awarded a Christopher Medal and named an outstanding book for young people by the Junior Library Guild.

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy, Childrens, Middle Grade, Friendship, Classics

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Zilpha Keatley Snyder was an American author of books for children and young adults. Three of Snyder's works were named Newbery Honor books: The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid and The Witches of Worm. She was most famous for writing adventure stories and fantasies.

Reviews

[Julie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 Kelly says she overheard Martha and Ivy talk about being responsible for a break in at the school, and because she is a favourite she is believed. We felt this was tied up too quickly by her brothers admission and reasons why he did it. Tom's involvement with drugs seemed a sudden addition to 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.

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 5 out of 5]

“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.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

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:While playing and imagining the girls do mention things about being someone else in a past life, and create make believe spells, etc. If you're particular about that sort of thing, be aware.

Also, there are a couple mentions of High School students doing drugs. In one place it's pills (non-specified), in another it's pot. It's not delved into, and doesn't involve the MC, but it is there. So, this one might be better for MG readers who are on the older side of that range.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Mir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two very different girls share a secret place in the trees.


(photo by Lisa Kimmell)

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quickie from 1970, this YA book so beautifully depicts what a friendship between young and pre-teen girls looks like.

[Ms. B · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snyder understands imaginative play and is able to convey the enchanted mood of creative children having their own special world. She has been recognized for doing this in her Newbery Honor book The Egypt Game, but I think it is handled even better in this book. This is a world that does not follow the conventional rules of established games and is kept separate from most grown-ups and children.

The fantasy world that Ivy Carson (the self-proclaimed changeling) and her close friend Martha Abbott develop over years, however, is not the only side to this story. A great deal is about real-world activities that hinge upon Ivy's family and how they are received in the town and on how a family name can tar with a broad brush, sometimes unjustly. Both Ivy and Martha are misfits, out of place in their own families, but often swept along by the perceptions and prejudices of others (both within and outside of these families).

I suspect that most readers identify with Martha than with Ivy. Hers is the perspective we get on the various happenings of the story (sometimes we get more with the convention of "Martha heard about it later in bits and pieces"), and I think this creates an intimacy where we, as readers, understand and sympathize with Martha while everyone else doesn't. Ivy, on the other hand, is a mystery - we know what she tells Martha, but is it true?

The story has a timeless feel to some degree, although some specifics of the real-world happenings ground it in a late 1960s to early 1970s timeframe. I think it's set in southern California, like many of Snyder's books (and I think there is a connection to her earlier book The Velvet Room - both make reference to a Montoya family, with an old house surrounded by a fruit orchard). I could see it being rewritten to set it in a different time, but I don't think there is any need to update it to make it relevant for youngsters to whom 1970 is the time of their grandparents. What really matters about this book goes beyond its setting.

By and large, the supporting characters are not wooden stereotypes that you know from other books; they behave realistically with their own idiosyncrasies. Only Kelly fits the "popular mean girl" mold, but even she is someone you have probably met in your own life, not an exaggeration or a caricature. I especially appreciated the inclusion of Mrs. Smith, an older woman who is nevertheless something of a kindred spirit to the young girls.

The book covers a number of years (from Martha in second to tenth grade), and what is particularly unusual about it is how Ivy unexpectedly disappears for long stretches of time, eventually returning just as unexpectedly. In the meantime we continue following Martha, seeing how she reacts to the absence and how she develops on her own. Then we see the two friends reunite, sometimes as if no time had passed, sometimes unsurely. Their fantasy talk and play develops, and I especially liked how it developed in middle school when they reviewed their older activities and "curated" them into presentations for younger children.

After a bit of a surprise climax, we learn of how Martha matures. We are given a little glimpse of new things in her life that could be big changes. In some ways this feels like a very satisfying wrap up. But then there is yet another final chapter that adds more information and suggests other possibilities. This is another example of how Snyder refuses to give us a conventional cookie-cutter story.

In addition to the connections to The Velvet Room and The Egypt Game, there's also a link to Snyder's Green Sky trilogy (beginning with Below the Root), which is an entirely fantastical tale, developing out of the stories and situations that Ivy and Martha create. I don't think there are prerequisites for reading and enjoying any of these books, but those who have experience with more of Snyder's catalog may be rewarded with additional insights. I have found Madeleine L'Engle to be another author where this is true.

Illustrations by Snyder's frequent collaborator Alton Raible are distinctive and add to the mood.

[CindySR · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sherwood Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Francesca Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorite books and a big influence on my *everything*.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Susann · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Sabina Hahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was like a cake that you were eating and then suddenly discovered it was spinach.
A magical growing up book that turns out to be talking about the weight of poverty, judgement and preconceptions. i really enjoyed it. Wish I discovered it when I was a child. Wish I had a friend like Ivy. or was Ivy.

Now that I am writing my thought, this book opened up a box of needs and wishes that I had locked up for many years. Not a bad thing.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Nilsson]

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?

[J.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Martha Abbott is the youngest of three in a busy social status-aware household. In contrast to her popular older siblings, Martha is quiet and shy and doesn't make friends easily. But then Ivy Carson shows up. The Carsons are not a respectable kind of family, and the father and sons are regularly in trouble with the law. They move often, but just as often return to the dilapidated old family home nearby. But Ivy is nice in a strange sort of away and she has a vivid imagination, even believing herself to be a "changeling" ("I think I might be a wood nymph or water sprite or something like that."). And she's just the sort of friend Martha needs.

This was a really sweet book about childhood friendship through the years. Not only do we get Martha's perspective of being something of a disappointment to her family, but we eventually get Ivy's frustrations of the way she's treated because of hers. It's one of those middle-grade books that just feels mature and even important - not silly or action-packed - just nice. I was a bit surprised at how casually drug use was discussed at one point in the story, but I guess since the book was written in 1970 the author was trying to be "hip" to all that. But other than that weirdness, it was a really nice story.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Marissa Christenson Lang · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Elsie Mecum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m restarting my ZKS read-through. I can’t remember if I read this as a child, but I would have loved it then. I do love how this book shows the evolution of their friendship from 7 to 16 years old.

[Sharon Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my absolute favorite books when I was a kid!

I should read it again.