The Magic Thief
By: Sarah Prineas
Harper Collins 2008
Rebecca Cadhill Young Readers Book Award
Illinois Children's Choice Award 2012

I was at first really excited to read this book because I absolutely love fantasy books especially when an author tries to create their own interpretation of a magical world and its mechanics. However, I was rather disappointed with this book unfortunately. The book is about 400+ pages and in those pages I never felt like there was a serious climactic point. The structure of the book was terrible also. It starts off with a boy stealing from a wizard and then all of a sudden he ends up being the magister's apprentice. Most of the time the transitions were hurried. I felt like the author had tried to create this magical world but she lost her grasp on it and it crumbled apart. The wizard that takes in Conn, the thief, never really gets fleshed out much unfortunately and is mostly just grumpy and mysterious. The wizard, Nevery, would randomly bring up things like his mother as if to make us feel for him or be curious but it was never brought up again. The author made a majority of the characters the strong silent type so there was not much dialogue.

Something I did like was how she made up this school, "The Academicos" and the "Locus Magicalicus." They were both very fun concepts if she would have built them up more. Also, the city having its magic drained was fun too but it was hardly ever mentioned even though it was one of the big plot points of the book. The same happened with the Academicos, it was fun to see Conn study and become an apprentice but when he left it was hardly ever mentioned again. The Locus Magicalicus was probably the only thing that was ever described with a lot of detail. It was a stone that would hold all of the Wizards power and it had to be found by the apprentice. Each one was unique, but Conn spent 10 chapters trying to find his and it got a bit boring. When he did find his it was a big event but they never explained why it was much more special than all of the others.

The villians were also left out along with their development. It was quite obvious which ones were bad, but you never learned anything much about them and once they get caught you never really find out what was their motivation for their plans. The last really disappointing part of this book was when we find out the boys "secret", but it was very anti-climactic. Nevery gets angry at him for it, but the whole situation does not make any sense once you read on some more about Conn's side of it. He could have resolved so many issues, but decided not to for some reason.

I unfortunately did not enjoy this book because of its lack of detail and development. It all felt rushed and like I was missing pieces of the story the whole time. Some may say that its just a kids book so there is no need to be so critical on it, but I believe even Children's novels can have expansive worlds and be brilliant, just like Eragon. Maybe since this book is apart of a series it gets better in the second book, but from experience that is probably unlikely.