Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"'Children?' Victor looked up in surprise. 'I've tracked down a lot of things in my time--suitcases, dogs, a couple of escaped lizards, and some husbands--but you are the first clients to come to me because they've lost their children, Mr. and Mrs....?' He looked at them inquisitively.
'Hartlieb,' the woman answered. 'Esther and Max Hartlieb.'
'And they are NOT our children,' her husband stated firmly, which immediately earned him an angry look from his pointy-nosed wife."

Recently I wrote about food and nutrition books. On occasion, someone will start getting all filled with awe when they hear about my diet since college--no meat, no additives, no caffeine, no white sugar. But whenever that happens, Shari will roll her eyes and make one of those noises of disgust, before launching into her "Don't-let-him-fool-you" rap about how I sure as heck have a sweet tooth, even if I don't eat white sugar.

(Shrug.) I plead guilty--Me 'n Pooh Bear would make a great team. I can eat heaping platefuls of the honey and molasses-sweetened oatmeal raisin cookies that Shari bakes for me. Give me those and a mason jar full of chamomile tea--that's MY comfort food.

THE THIEF LORD is comfort food. Beautifully evocative descriptions of Venice where the story takes place, a great cast of consistantly well-formed characters, most of whom you come to love, and a tale that at first drifts gently from chapter to chapter, like the little waves that lap at the rocky feet of houses along the Venitian canals. But, while the voices may dance softly across the page, this adventurous tale that centers around two orphan brothers and the detective who is hired to track them down is quite cleverly crafted, containing as many wild twists and narrow, unnamed alleys as does the city of Venice itself. And then, just when you feel like you've got the lay of the land, you zag right off the map.

THE THIEF LORD, which is already a wildly-popular bestseller in Germany where it was first published, is an utter joy to read. It is another one that I'll be impatiently awaiting the chance to read aloud to the family. If word gets out how great this one is, Barry Cunningham, the man known for discovering J.K. Rowling, may have his first monster hit in his latest role as Publisher of Chicken House.

And, just as I once again made a couple of visits to Grand Central Station during BookExpo in honor of Peter Lake, I now long to travel to the city of Venice, that I may stroll through the Piazza San Marco, gaze up at the winged lions, check out a shop filled with junk down some narrow alley, and then spit in the canal for good luck.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com