It took me longer than I expected, but I finally finished The Child Thief by Brom. Just because it took me a while does not mean I did not enjoy the story – because I did, but some of it was finding the time to read, and the other piece was that it took a while to get a grip on what the story was trying to tell. When I did start to see the full picture I definitely wanted to keep reading because I needed to know what would happen.
The biggest thing to remember is this is not the Peter Pan of your childhood. This story is one that takes us to a much darker place where Peter is not just simply a boy and the dreaded Captain is something else entirely.
Part of the reason that Child Thief is so intriguing is due to the fact that it actually combines a couple of different stories that we know and love. One is obviously Peter Pan, which is the most prominent of the stories as Peter is the main protagonist. The other is a little surprising at first and is probably only subtly connected, but it is the Arthurian legends. I will explain more a little bit later, but Brom did a brilliant job of combining these two stories. The other piece is the way they mix the storytelling from Peter to one of the boys that Peter ends up “stealing” away named Nick. We get both of their perspectives, to give us the contrasting viewpoints. This helps give us a connection to someone from the real world that we can understand to help us see what this new world is supposed to be like. Continue reading
Comparative Geeks 