The Thief / Megan Whalen Turner / 219 pages

January reading...Ah, this really did deserve to be a Newbery Honor book. The book centers on imaginary kingdoms with real-life issues and characters with courage and warts. It involves a quest, a dungeon, spies, a treasure, puzzles to be solved, cleverness, humor, skirmishes, trickery & treachery. Things are never as they seem in this wonderfully engaging story. Sure to be enjoyed by adults kids grades 5 & up who will anxiously read the sequels The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia and Conspiracy of Kings. Great for fans of Blue Balliet, Ellen Rasking, and even Rick Riordan. It's a book where you heave a sigh of pleasure as you read the last sentence.