The Thief of Farrowfell

Ravena Guron's The Thief of Farrowfell is a funny, fast fantasy for 9 year olds about the youngest member of a family of magic thieves.

What happens

Jude Ripon LOVES stealing. She's twelve, and the Ripons run the most successful criminal empire in Farrowfell. But to the rest of her family she's only the kid on lookout, miles from the action.

So she breaks into the Weston mansion on her own. In Farrowfell, magic is something you eat. Ghost magic lets you walk through walls (it tastes like feet). Invisibility magic is gritty and bitter. What Jude's after is a rare butter-yellow stone of decision-making magic.

She gets it, just about. There are guards made of golden outlines with very solid swords, a house that flatly refuses to let her leave, and a masked woman who says the stone is cursed. Steal it for your family, she warns, and your family's lives will slowly fall apart.

Jude reckons that's rubbish. Then, that very evening, things start going wrong at home.

Jude is brilliant company. She's cheeky and quick-thinking, whether she's chatting to sword-wielding guards ("Lovely home you guard here") or carving rude words into a front door until it gives up and lets her out. She fights with a yo-yo that squeals at her enemies, which is a great touch.

And the weekly Ripon family dinner is hilarious and horrible at the same time. There's an aunt with a wart that twitches when she's annoyed, a cousin whose flying carriage keeps crashing into lakes, and Grandleader at the head of the table, whom nobody dares cross. Who wouldn't want to eat at that table? (Well, maybe not every week.)

Under all the fun there's some sadness that's worth being aware of. Jude's mum barely notices her, and her dad has a scary temper that nobody can predict. There's also talk of a basement where the walls feed on fear, used as a punishment. If your reader has ever felt overlooked at home, some of that may sting. Jude's grit and her jokes keep it bouncing along, though.

What to read next

If they love a kid raised in the family trade, try Jude Watson's Loot next. March McQuin was taught everything he knows by his cat-burglar dad, though be warned that it opens on a very sad night in Amsterdam.