The Thief Lord, by Cornelia Funke, is one of the best children’s books to come out of Germany in recent decades. Bo and Prosper, two brothers whose parents are dead, have run away to Venice. They become part of a gang of young pickpockets living in an abandoned theater, while hiding from the investigator that their aunt has hired to find them. Living on the fringes of both the tourist Venice and the sleazy Venice underworld, the boys are constantly in danger of discovery, arrest, or worse.
They gradually learn who they can trust and who is being honest with them. They also learn that, in the dingy but still appealing Venice of this book, things are often not what they seem. This is an exciting and wonderfully-written story about growing up and learning what you really want.
The Thief Lord is just one of many books by Cornelia Funke that have appeared in English. Among children’s authors who write in German, she is the best known in the English-speaking world. Her fantasy books Inkspell and Inkheart are immensely popular right now, and the third book of this trilogy should be out soon.
To see the Amazon.com page for this book, click on this link:
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