(no subject)

The map from the book. Missing the middle bits.

"Move along, Bo!" Prosper urged. "It's nearly three o'clock."

But Bo was standing in front of the massive portal of the Basilica, looking up at the horses. Whenever he came to St. Mark's Square, he stopped and tipped his head back to stare up at them. Four horses — massive golden horses — stood frozen there, stomping and neighing.Every time Bo wondered again why they hadn't jumped down yet. They looked so alive.

"Bo!"

Impatiently, Prosper dragged him along through the throngs of people, waiting eagerly at the entrance to the huge church, to see the gilded walls and ceilings.

"They're angry," said Bo, looking back.

"Who are?"

"The golden horses."

"Angry?" Prosper frowned as he dragged him along."About what?"

"Because someone stole them and carried them off here," Bo whispered. "Hornet told me." He held on tight to Prosper's hand so he wouldn't lose his big brother in the crowd as they circled the Basilica. Back in the narrow alleys he wasn't usually afraid, but it was different here on the wide-open square. Bo called it the Lion Square . He knew that it had a proper name really, but he called it that anyway. During the day every cobblestone here belonged to the pigeons and the tourists. But at night when the pigeons slept on the roofs and the people lay in their hotel beds, the square belonged to the horses and the winged lion that stood among the stars. Bo was certain about that.

"It is a thousand, or even a hundred years ago that they brought them here," Bo said.

"Who?"Prosper pushed his brother past a bride and groom who were having their picture taken in front of the Basilica.

"The horses!"Bo turned around again but he couldn't see them anymore.


-The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

The problem I've found with The Thief Lord is that I really want to share from this beautiful book, except I'm having an awful time finding a spot to catch my breath and find things to say about it. It moves very fast, and every event has a lot to do with every other one, so it's hard to slice a section out to post about like I was doing with The Magician's Nephew.

But the passage above is a good start. The main thing about this book is that it makes me love Venice and want to go there. This is pretty impressive, since I hate travel in general. I don't often mind being there, Florida and the San Diego Comic Con were pretty fun, but sometimes I'm pretty sure I'd rather never leave the same ten km radius than ever go on a plane again. And going to Europe would involve a lot of plane time.

This book feels like a love letter to Venice. It's filled with descriptions of golden lit cathedrals, winged lions, canals, things like that.

The characters are good too. It's about a group of orphan children, who are taken care of by another child who calls himself the Thief Lord. The main characters are Prosper and Boniface (Bo), who are orphans who ran away from their evil aunt and uncle (evil, in the sense of being awful people and not, say, planning to sacrifice the kids for power from Satan) who want to separate the brothers, because they just want cute five year old Bo, not older Prosper.

There's Mosca, whose family doesn't miss him, Riccio, who is an orphan, and Hornet who keeps her name secret because she never wants to be returned to her family. This sounds very grim. But it's not, really. And Scipio, the Thief Lord. He gives me mental image problems because of this Templar, Arizona character of the same name. OTOH, it would be hilarious to have TemplarScipio doing and acting the way ThiefLordScipio does, so I'm not calling this confusion a minus.

There's also a detective who loves fake beards, has two tortoises (my favourite characters), and a woman photographer what loves adventure.

Page 274 and I still can't think of anything to say except a squee-filled book report. I really really like this book. She has two other really good ones, Igraine The Brave (a little girl from a family of magicians who wants to be a knight) and Inkheart (Inkheart has sequels, but I haven't read them yet so I can't say either way).