My So-Called Life

摘要

In the event this is a deal breaker, you should know right off the bat that "The Stolen Child," by Keith Donohue, belongs to the genre known as fantasy, and that its pages are populated by hobgoblins and changelings. Fantasy is often dismissed as a necessary evil to get kids to take their medicine—i.e., learn values—or as a soft blanket for 40-year-old virgins. But as the success of "The Time Traveler's Wife" attests, fantasy can serve a nobler function. By replacing the sordidness of the everyday with magic, writers can approach the philosophers' stone with questions about history, identity and (why not?) the meaning of life.