Funke, Cornelia. The thief lord.

Tr. by Oliver Latsch. Scholastic, The Chicken House. 345p. map. c2000.0-439-40437-1. $16.95. J

This novel about runaways in Venice, Italy, has been a best seller in Germany and has won literary prizes there and in Austria and Switzerland. It isn't really a YA novel, but is instead a sometimes demanding children's book, filled with adventure and a bit of magic. It's demanding because it's rather long and filled with details about Venice, which may be hard for many middle school students. Still, I'm sure there will be students in 5th through 8th grade who will appreciate the European nature of the story. There are many characters, and the adults are nearly as well realized as the children (an odd circumstance in children's literature). One main character is a miserable rich boy whose father either ignores him or demands too much of him So Scipio--the Thief Lord--makes his life more exciting by befriending a group of children who are homeless runaways. Scipio finds them a place to stay in an abandoned cinema. Included in the runaways are two brothers, Prosper and Bo, orphans hiding from their aunt. This aunt hires a detective named Victor to find the boys, but when Victor does locate them, his sympathies lie with the boys and not with their aunt.

The plot just gets more and more convoluted, with numerous other characters, planned thefts, a connection with an orphanage run by Catholic nuns in Venice, a magical carousel that will change a child to an adult or an adult to a child (you can imagine that some of the characters take advantage of this escape), and much more. The action rolls along in short chapters, each illustrated with a small pen-and-ink illustration of a locale in Venice. The vocabulary is somewhat demanding, with Italian words thrown in for atmosphere, but some YAs will certainly enjoy this challenge. It is possible that it would appeal to readers of the Harry Potter stories.