Skip to main content

Thieves of Weirdwood

Image
By
Thieves of Weirdwood
By Christian McKay Heidicker
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2020. Fiction.

For 12-year-olds, Wally Cooper and Arthur Benton are expert thieves. It helps that they are both unusually motivated; Arthur longs to be just like the gentleman thief Garnett Lacroix from his favorite adventure books and free his drunkard father from the crippling debt that has loan sharks in his pursuit; and Wally has his brother's looming mental hospital bills to consider. When Arthur sees a girl in golden robes walk into an otherwise derelict old manor, Arthur is convinced he's found the perfect con -- they'll break in and steal enough treasure to never think about money again. What they find instead, is an entrance to a realm of nightmares and a secret society tasked with preserving the veil between the real world and the Fae world. Suddenly, Arthur and Wally are tangled into a mystery much bigger than either of them could imagine and it's up to them to save their city and the veil between the worlds.

This is an incredibly sophisticated, slightly-scary fantasy from Newbery Honoree and Utah-based author Christian McKay Heidicker -- writing under the suitably chilling pen name William Shivering. With a complex plot and truly admirable world-building, you might think that character development would suffer; but even with so much going on, we see Arthur, Wally and a sizeable cast of compelling background characters grow and change as the story goes on. This is the type of book where small details may seem extraneous but in the end they all tie together. This page-turning, cliff-hanger-ending book is sure to be popular with readers who like unusual fantasy and aren't too scared of monsters.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The Memory Spinner

By
The Memory Spinner Written by C.M. Cornwell New York : Delacorte Press, 2025. Fiction. 281 pages. Fantasy is a genre that I don't often read. When I finish a good fantasy book, I always ask myself why I don't read more of them! This book made me ask myself that exact question. Lavender is a young girl who is struggling after the death of her mother. Her father doesn't like talking about the family's loss, and Lavender feels very alone in knowing how to grieve and cope with her feelings. Making the grieving process even harder for Lavender is the fact that she is struggling to hold on to memories of her mother.  The family runs an apothecary shop where Lavender is an apprentice. She has dreamed of her apprenticeship for a long time, putting in a lot of work to show her father she is a valuable asset. Unfortunately, while working side by side with her father, Lavender starts to notice that memories of her mother aren't the only thing she is having a hard time recallin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more