What happens if the best young crooks in the country are secretly invited to an off-the-grid location so they can be trained in the arts of thievery, hacking and skulduggery? You get Crookhaven: School for Thieves.
Thirteen-year-old Gabriel Avery is an exceptional pick pocket, picking the pockets of the unsuspecting to feed his grumbling belly and to ease the hunger pains of his dearly loved grandma. When his latest pick goes wrong he fears being reported to the authorities. Instead, he is the recipient of a puzzling invitation and a meeting with the mysterious Caspian Crook.
Crook is the headmaster of Crookhaven, a boarding school for the criminally minded and training ground for the elite crooks of the future. For the first time in his life Gabriel’s skills are valued and with a school wide competition to be crowned Top Crook and plenty of intriguing mysteries to unravel, the first year at Crookhaven is going to be criminally good…
Ragtag band of modern day Robin Hood’s deliver a thrilling and gripping read of irresistible illegal activity in J.J. Arcanjo’s brilliant debut. Boarding school stories are always popular amongst middle-graders and this fresh and ingenious take on the well-trodden path will be heavily fought over, in fact, I would be picking the pockets of others just to get my hands on it. Superbly written, jam-packed with mystery and intrigue and just the right amount of villainy, Crookhaven is a rip-roaring read of school, friendship, family and finding a place where your belong. It has all the essentials of a boarding school story but offers up a unique and new idea: an original, fast-paced plot bursts with criminally clever twists; diverse and well thought out characters are fabulous and easy to root for; moral dilemmas provide plenty for readers to think about, challenging them to decide if it is ever ok to do the wrong thing in the name of doing good. I never received my owl post invitation to Hogwarts but that’s ok as I now have a new boarding school that I am desperate to attend. Crookhaven is quite possibly the best and coolest live-in school since the magical wizarding world of Rowling (that is high praise indeed coming from a Harry Potter obsessive). The school for wrongdoers, swindlers and thieves that provides lessons in forgery, lock-picking, deception, tricks of the trade and crimnastics all in the name of teaching students how to do wrong but only so one day it can be used to put the world to right sounds awesome. This first in a new series promises much and Arcanjo has established himself as an exciting new voice in children’s fiction. I cannot wait for book two - in the meantime I’ll be mastering forgery, perfecting my lock-picking and developing my flexibility to become an expert in crimnastics. Recommended for 9+. With huge thanks to Hachette for the copy I received in exchange for an honest review.
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