"You're really very young for a bunch of thieves."
In Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord, no one is too young for adventure. When twelve-year-old Prosper loses his parents to tragedy, his aunt and uncle threaten to take away the only good thing he has left: his five-year-old brother, Boniface. Clinging to his sibling in his grief, Prosper takes Bo to Venice, land of his mother's fairy tales. There, they disappear with the help of Hornet, a young girl who leads them to a host of other orphans and runaways living together in an ancient movie theater. There, they are provided for by Scipio, an intrepid burglar who calls himself the Thief Lord. When the Thief Lord takes a job from a mysterious client, honest Prosper does everything he can to stay out of it, but it soon becomes apparent that bigger things are afoot. His aunt and uncle have arrived in Venice, and they are determined to claim Bo as their own...no matter the cost.
Funke's uses a gorgeous writing style in this novel. Venice is portrayed as a land of magic, in the descriptions as well as the story. Everything from exquisitely carved lions to a private detective's disguises is recorded with both impeccable detail and love. The characters all possess a larger-than-life quality that is unmistakable, as do the secrets that are slowly revealed as the plot progresses. Secrets are unveiled. Magic is released. Truths tear people apart. Prosper and Bo's journey toward a better life is riddled with trouble, yet somehow they manage to pull through. That is, until something horrible rocks their world, leaving them little time to pick up the pieces before it falls apart for good.
Everyone who makes an appearance in this little narrative is a fully developed, fleshed-out person with their own lives, hopes, and dreams. Even the grown-ups keep a tiny morsel of their childhood self locked away within their souls, and these emerge on occasion to spice things up or deepen their core characters, depending on the situation. Meanwhile, the children are just as diverse and realistic as their more adult counterparts--without making this all about kids versus grown-ups. This balance is maintained nicely throughout the entire story, even as Prosper, Bo, and their new friends haggle with a greedy pawn shop owner over the Thief Lord's payments and run from a nosy investigator. In the end, each one is simply a person, and that is done so beautifully it is almost breathtaking.
The red-flag-count in The Thief Lord is approximately zero. While the Thief Lord may be a burglar, he tends to leave his young friends out of it, which means they are generally safe. There are, however, several scenes in which this is not the case--times when the police are on their trail, vicious dogs are chasing them, or they have to make a decision about a prisoner. Whatever violence does take place is very clean, as is the vocabulary used. As the vast majority of the protagonists are children, there is no romance aside from a flirtationship between a couple of the adults, which is actually quite cute.
I would recommend this book to children and children-at-heart who long for an adventure in a magical world they can find on a real map. The Thief Lord features bright kids, a daring leader, shocking discoveries, grown-ups both kind and cruel, and people who seem just as tangible as the readers themselves. The writing style is great, the worldbuilding is absorbing, and the plot is addictive. Cornelia Funke did a truly grand job with this story, which deserves five golden stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment