Heather's Thoughts on The Thief Lord

I enjoyed reading The Thief Lord. It was an amazing story of magic and actual situations. Everything seemed to based on actual places and of real world things, but then the part about the merry-go-round was introduced. I knew something had to come into the story of that nature because this is a children's book, and without something with great imagination it really isn't a true children's book.

When I first started reading the book I thought it was set in a early 1900s time period, but then I got to the part of using a cell phone and answering machine. I think the description of the detective made me think it was set in an early time. I am used to reading stories of detectives that took place in the early 1900s and I just had that thought in my mind.

I noticed a lot of foreshadowing throughout the story. I always have this mindset of "What can that mean?" or "What is this leading to?" I guess it is the detective in me! I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen. I knew there was something strange or different about Scipio from the beginning. The way the other children talked about him, he seemed to be a hero of some sort, but the description of him just made me laugh. I thought of the character of Puss in Boots from the Shrek movies. I could just see young Scipio running around with his pointy-toed boots and waving a flimsy sword.

Two themes that stood out to me were of strong and lasting friendships and the idea of being a child versus being an adult. The strongest theme in the book was of the friendships. Once you became one of the group you were a friend for life. The children did have their moments of arguing and being upset with each other, but in the end everyone was happy and still friends. The other theme of wanting to be a child versus wanting to be an adult didn't stick out that much, but I think it was an important theme. There were some adults in the story, Renzo and Morosina, that did not want to live their adult life because they missed their childhood, but in Scipio's case he wanted to be grown so he could have his own life. Once the adults were turned into children they realized that it was not what they wanted, that they didn't get back the simple mindedness of being young and innocent. Scipio made asked Victor what adults do during the day, and was interested in what Victor told him because he had no idea. He still had the mindset of a young child. I thought that knowing how different the two lifestyles are was important to show children. Teach them that they do not want to grow up too fast.

Overall, I think this is a wonderful book. I am glad I had the opportunity to read it and really think about what happened in the story. I loved the character descriptions and the way the young children showed great friendship toward one another. I would highly recommend this book to upper Elementary school teachers.