Lindsay's Response to "The Thief Lord"

I really enjoyed this book once I got into it. It was a great story overall, but I don't think that I personally would have read it when I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I wasn't really a fan of the whole thing about the children running away. I think Funke should have made it where they had taken a family trip to Venice and the children dreamt they had this experience. To me it would have been very overwhelming, as a fifth or sixth grader, to read this. On the other hand, I totally understand why the boys did it. I wouldn't have wanted to be separated from a sibling, and if one of my parents had told me all kinds of magical stories about this place, then of course I would have wanted to visit. I wish that I knew Italian, because most of the italicized words, I had no idea what they were, so I had to look them up. I did think it was a great learning tool, because I am sure most fifth and/or sixth graders don't know it either, so that was something else they were able to learn while reading this book. I thought the character descriptions were great, and I also like how Funke let us into their minds to see what they thought and how they felt. I think Prosper was doing a good thing by teaching his brother that they were only stealing because they had to, and that he shouldn't do it all the time like Scipio had told him. I think Prosper was worried about Bo and how he idolized Scipio. But then again, Bo would have never learned this or had anything to do with this if it weren't for his brother taking him. This book was full of life lessons, and then other ones to contradict them. I think it was a good idea to do, because it will teach the kids right and wrong, and how to decipher between the two. After and during I was reading, I felt as if I was in Venice, and I have never been. It definitely made me feel like I need to visit there sometime in my life. I love a good book with such good descriptions. Overall, I feel as if this was a great book, even though I would like to change a few aspects of it. I work at a school up here in the after school program, and I asked my kids (I work with the fourth and fifth graders) if they had ever read it, and the ones who had couldn't wait for me to finish the book so we could discuss it one day, so I believe any fifth student would enjoy this book.