Saaski is a changeling. Her adopted human parents, Anwara and Yanno love her but find her (as most of the village does) a little bit odd. Saaski's appearance is unusual, she does not act as a human child should and she has a love for the wild lands of the moor above the sleepy village; a place described by villagers as filled with "eldritch" happenings and mischief.
Tormented daily by the other village children and feeling just as "freaky-odd" as they call her, Saaski belongs neither with the human villagers or with the elves that swapped her for Anwara's true human child. As the story progresses, Saaski struggles to find some measure of peace with her human family. When a traveling tinkerer and his young ward stumble into town, Saaski begins to discover who she truly is and where she came from.
I love this book and believe all young readers should give it a try. It is one of the few books that I have had to purchase because I reread and reread this story. This is a story about a young girl who feels very alone in a world that she finds incredibly dull. I was emotionally vested in this story and even found some parts of this story hard to read as McGraw describes the terrible injustices done to Saaski through fear of the unknown. This book is at times, heartwarming and at others, heartbreaking but always enthralling. The story is heavily steeped in Irish folklore about fairies and changelings for the reader interested in European mythology.
The Moorchild was awarded the Newbery Honor in 1997.
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