I will say that I emphasised with the secondary character in this book more than the main character. I was always "the odd one" as a kid--partly because we were Navy, and moved a lot, partly because I was the "plain" child in my family and partly because I was smart and finally because I was blind as a bat until at the age of 8 my Mum finally found an eye doctor who realized it. As a result, I really LOVED this book, with its main characters NOT being the pretty, popular girls that, until this book, had been the heroines of most stories. Now there are a lot of books where the main character isn't that pretty, cheerleader type person. But when this book was published, it was totally "WOW--finally a book for others like ME."

Well worth reading even if YOU are one of those pretty princess type people.

A. YA, fiction, coming of age, Mom's stash, keep.

A changeling is a child that has been left in place of a real baby by a preternatural being such as a water sprite or a elf or a fairy. Ivy professes to be one. She is a Carson, part of a family of low social class in the neighborhood. But she is not like them. She is befriended by Martha, an upper class child who never seems to fit in with the rest of her family or in the neighborhood. I enjoyed this book because I liked both main characters. They were both sweet and trying together to fit in with everybody else--although in their own way.

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.

I don't recall reading this one when I was younger, though I loved Snyder's works. She has a knack for capturing the feelings of young people and their thoughts, even if the voices she provides sometimes sound dated. The Changeling is no exception. Who hasn't struggled with trying to fit in with classmates, doubting friends, or being caught between imaginary games and growing up?

This is not a book about a changeling. The book is deliberately misleading, and readers find out why towards the end. I'm okay with this. I read this book when I was eight or nine, and marveled at it. More than twenty years later, I picked it up again. I was curious to learn if it would have the same effect on me. I had forgotten a lot of it, actually. The story is about the friendship between Martha and Ivy. Martha comes from a family with high expectations, high achievers, and strict gender roles. As a child, she is chubby, cries a lot and doesn't like being a Girl Scout. She does not feel a sense of belonging in her own family. Ivy is a respite from all that. She, too, is a misfit in her own family. Creative, imaginative, confident and daring, she is nonetheless constrained by her family's circumstances. They're often on the run from the law, but come back to Martha's town every two years. They own a house there. Ivy's mom is an alcoholic. Her dad has a ton of bad luck in life. Her siblings are following in her parents' footsteps. Ivy's rich imagination helps her cope. Her friendship with Martha helps both girls immensely. Much of the book is dedicated to the games of make believe Ivy and Martha immerse themselves in. This takes a wonderful turn into them doing theater and dance in middle school. And then the plot shows up in the form of the antagonist, Kelly. Regina George is a descendant of hers, in movie form. My heart warmed at how Tom, Martha's star quarterback brother, stood up for his sister and was rightfully cold to Kelly. This was near the book's end, and I welcomed it. I laughed at some of it, delighted. The actual ending was predictable in some ways. I'm glad I read it as an adult now.

This is a great book about friendship, the power of imagination, being different, and growing up. It's a rather quiet book, not fast-paced, and I found myself trying to read it slowly in order to absorb it fully. I can see bits of both main characters, Martha and Ivy, in myself as a child.

I think this book is out of print, but one might be able to find it at the public library as I did.

I read this book a lot when I was a kid, so much that even all these years later, i remember certain passages and descriptions exactly. Martha and Ivy make friends in school and their friendship grows under some objections of Martha's family. Ivy's family is poor and the dad and the brothers are often in trouble with the law.

But Martha loves Ivy and her imagination and stories and the two invent a world they play in. It is a sweet friendship that is tested as they get older. I love the way Snyder writes the girls, she captures that special bond between childhood friends.

I loved this book

I've just read one of my favorite books as a child. When I was young, I recognized the injustices but didn't know what they were all about. Stereotypes, incorrect assumptions, resting in the way things are because they've always been that way.

A book for these very times. If you want to grow, read it.

"The Changeling" is about two little girls who grow up together. From the day Ivy Carson introduces herself to Martha Abbot the two become the inseparable friends they were always meant to be. Together they strengthen one another's imaginations and support each other's dreams. The two girls show strong character; Ivy being the brave and fearless, Martha being the quiet and shy.

The childhood friends do more than grow up together, they grow off each other. I say this because of the extreme influence the two had on each other. They both came from families that were unable to understand them. They needed one another's nurturing and support.

The stories the girls created together provided both the nurturing and support they needed. It was something they enjoyed and where able to bond over. The stories they created became more elaborate over time. As they grow older and mature we observe the stories changing with them as well. Their stories evolution over time is clear proof of the influence the two had on one another's lives.

What I found interesting was the overall setup of the book. It begin's with a 16 year old Martha reflecting on her childhood after she hears of the Carson's return. The Carson's being a family of "jail-birds" and "drunks" with to many kids. They are outcasts in a town full of wealthy families. Because of this they often leave town for months, or even years at a time. They don't tell anyone where they go and Ivy is unable to communicate with Martha during their absence. When time jumps ahead in the story (the intervals of the Carson's absence) we see just how much change occurs in the two girls lives. It's also evident that the key link between the two's friendship is their child-like behavior that they preserve. Their resistance against growing up becomes something the two keep as a goal.

As they resist growing up Ivy continues to claim that one day she will suddenly "change" into some magical creature. It is something her favorite aunt used to tell her about. According to Ivy's aunt Ivy was really switch at birth. She was given to human parents by her undetermined magical parents, and would one day magically change into something new. Her Aunt told her she was called a Changeling. At the end of this book I believe the meaning of the word Changeling ended up meaning something a little different that what Ivy had originally believed.

In the end I think we can compare the word Changeling to the word growing up. Yes, the girls were against "growing up" and that's why I found it fitting that they used a different word to describe the changes and growth that had occurred in their lives. They didn't want to use the word "grown up" because to them it meant that they would be loosing that childish part of themselves they so desperately wanted to keep. By the end of the story Ivy writes to Martha about how different her life had become. She was no longer known as the little girl who's family always was getting into trouble, but went to New York where she was seen as a dancer. She acknowledges the change in her life and so she then reveals to Martha that she indeed became a Changeling.

My Brother in law bought me the first book of Zilpha's Green Sky Trilogy and I have become quite a fan of this author. I'm so glad that the author's guild brought these little treasures back into print.

The Changeling reminded me very much of Bridge to Terabithia in that there is two children from different backgrounds creating their own world and changing and growing because of it. Martha and Ivy are such well created characters that many readers could identify with some part or another of either of them. As an added bonus (for me since I enjoyed the place), one of the main places Martha and Ivy create is Green Sky, a little similar to the Green Sky trilogy, but also very different.

The most amazing thing to me about this book is that somehow Zilpha made it timeless. It was written in 1970 and what happens to children growing up are still happening and she manages to put the story together without placing anything in it that would give it a timeline, so that it could have happened today, ten years ago, or ten years in the future.

Now if you are looking for a book with fantastical creatures that might not exist because no one has ever seen them before, then this is not your book. Don't let the name make you think it's about shape shifting or something similar. It is only filled with the magic of imagination.