Carl Reader

The Stolen Child Carl Reader

The Stolen Child is a novella of one very special day in the life of a boy in the 1950s, a day that defines his existence from then on. The day begins with a kiss from a girl and ends with a devastating insight into his mother's life, a life that has veered tragically off-course due to the death of a soldier in World War II. In between, the boy experiences in a child's way just about everything a person can experience in life, from love to work to death to marriage to spirituality and betrayal and war and the loss of love. He goes to his father's job site and views an unearthed pile of bones and his father explains what he believes happens after death. He comes home to a marriage ceremony conducted by his sister that unites him with the girl who kissed him to begin the day, and he plays war with some awful neighborhood boys who believe it's their job to inflict horrible pain on him. He sees his mother interact with his mad uncle, another victim of World War II who's cracked up into an emotional wreck and who ruins the evening's meal. And at the end of the day, he loses the love he thought he had, after he learns of a similar but far more terrible loss suffered by his mother and an apparent but accidental betrayal by his father. A seamless work, not separated by chapters but presented as a continuous flow of life in words, The Stolen Child teaches in one day many of the lessons of sadness and woe that life inevitably inflicts on us.