#13 The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (1997)
93 points
I wish this series had been out when I was a kid! One of the best written ever. – Martha Sherod
A classic adventure story that’s still less than 20 years old. I love Gen, and loved being completely surprised by the ending the first time around. - Libby Gorman
When we were reading to both our kids together, my older son said we had to read this book next. I was skeptical, but by the time I finished, I was a complete fan. And it grows on me with each rereading — because I notice more clever things each time. – Sondra Eklund
Eugenides may be my favorite literary character that I would not want to actually hang out with in real life. - Ann Carpenter
While I might love the later books in the series a bit more, it’s easier to argue that this one is a middle grade book. Plus, it’s where it all started and it features one of my favorite fictional twists ever. – Jessalyn Gale
Previously #83 on this list I have this mental image of Eugenides taking a flying leap and crawling his way up a book 70 places to reside here in the top twenty at last. The last time I conducted this poll I wondered what would happen if Ms. Turner’s vast fan network were aware of this poll. This time around it seems they still didn’t hear about it in time. Otherwise you can bet he’d be residing proudly at #1.
The plot, as described on the author’s own website, reads, “The most powerful advisor to the King of Sounis is the magus. He’s not a wizard, he’s a scholar, an aging solider, not a thief. When he needs something stolen, he pulls a young thief from the King’s prison to do the job for him. Gen is a thief and proud of it. When his bragging lands him behind bars he has one chance to win his freedom– journey to a neighboring kingdom with the magus, find a legendary stone called Hamiathes’s Gift and steal it. Simple really, except for the mountains in between, the temple under water, and the fact that no one has ever gone hunting Hamiathes’s Gift and returned alive. The magus has plans for his King and his country. Gen has plans of his own.”
The Thief, as it turns out, was only Turner’s second book. This might surprise some folks who find her writing to be particularly good. Yet her first published title was actually a short story collection called Instead of Three Wishes. And how did she get that published? In an interview with HipWriterMama she said, “I owe it all to Diana Wynne Jones. She recommended my work to Susan Hirschman at Greenwillow.” In her entry in Contemporary Authors Online, some note is made of the creation of this book. “Published the year after Instead of Three Wishes, Turner’s debut novel The Thief was inspired by a vacation she and her husband took to Greece, where they became steeped in the history and landscape of the Mediterranean.” Prior to that she’d had a vague idea for a book. “I did have an idea in mind about a group of people traveling together with one severely undervalued member of the party, but I couldn’t start writing until I decided on the setting.” With Greece, that little problem was solved.
This is the first in a series too. The next books to follow (so far anyway) were The Queen of Attolia (2000), The King of Attolia (2006), and A Conspiracy of Kings (2010).
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"As Scarlett Martin's rigorous sophomore year begins in New York City, her life takes a turn for the extraordinary. Her eccentric boss' demands are getting weirder and weirder, her brother suddenly becomes a notorious and hated TV villain... and that's just the beginning.
"A Conspiracy of Kings is the fourth book in The Queen's Thief series, and in my opinion, it's the best one. This book focuses on Sophos (one of the minor characters in the previous books) and his dangerous adventures and epic rise to power as the king of Sounis.
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we were told that Sophos had disappeared after having been abducted by rebels? In A Conspiracy of Kings, we find out what happened to Sophos and why it takes him so long to reappear.
Jena, Dakota, Skye, and Owen are all at Paradise—the resort in the Caribbean, that is—for different reasons, but in Paradise their lives become tangled together in ways none of them can predict. Over the course of four months, through four voices and four stories, what happened in Paradise will change them all.
Violet Ambrose can find dead bodies. Or at least she can sense those that have been murdered. She locates them by the echoes they leave behind…and the imprints they leave on their killers. As if that weren’t enough to deal with during her junior year, she also has a sudden, inexplicable, and consuming crush on her best friend since childhood, Jay Heaton.
Sophos, heir to Sounis, doesn’t look like much of a prince. At least, according to those in power. At least, to those who do not know him or the size of his heart and the depth of his courage, loyalty, and love. But Helen, Queen of Eddis, knows him, and so does Gen, the queen’s Thief, who is now King of Attolia. Gen and the queen believe that Sophos is dead. But they also believe in hope, especially since a body was never found. So when Sophos is discovered in Attolia, climbing a lamppost, peashooter in hand, the obvious question becomes: where has Sophos been all this time?
Delicious and magical, here is a debut novel about a new (and slightly misunderstood) girl at an exclusive boarding school. Laurel has always loved flowers, but when a class project calls for research into the Victorian language of flowers, she makes a potent discovery. Her affinity for blooming things is actually age-old magic, passed from one generation to the next-a bittersweet gift from her beloved mother, who’s recently died-and it gives Laurel the power to make people fall in and out of love. Laurel’s introduction to the secret society of flowerspeakers is rife with complications and mishaps-especially when her classmates convince her to use her magic at the prom. This evocative coming-of-age story lingers in the air much like the fragrant blooms that determine Laurel’s fate so mysteriously.
Alessandra is desperate to escape—from her stepmother, who’s locked her away for a year; from the cloister that awaits her if she refuses the marriage plans that have been made for her; from the expectations that limit her and every other girl in fourteenth-century Italy. There’s no tolerance in her village for her keen intelligence and her unconventional ideas.
Speaking of musicals, there is a Caddie Woodlawn musical that is not QUITE as cool as the Phantom Tollbooth infographic, but pretty cool nevertheless….
Thank you, dearie!
I’m so surprised that the stupid Giving Tree didn’t make the tattoo list!
Oh my. That wallpaper.
Being both a color fan and an Oliver Jeffers fan, I would TOTALLY use that wallpaper.