cover image The School for Thieves (The School for Thieves #1)

The School for Thieves (The School for Thieves #1)

Peter Burns. Aladdin, $18.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-6659-8228-3

Orphaned 13-year-old Tom Morgan has spent years perfecting the art of thievery. With no knowledge of his parents beyond his mother possibly being from Egypt, he survives by picking strangers’ pockets on the streets of London, all the while avoiding snatchers who would lock him up in a workhouse if caught. Things look grim when his friends are captured by snatchers. Then Tom receives the chance of a lifetime after a mysterious man hands him a card that reads, “Wanted: the clever, the cunning, and the fearless. Must be willing to risk death daily. Fortunes available for the most daring and capable.” Tom soon finds himself whisked away to Beaufort’s School for Deceptive Arts, an elite boarding academy for thieves, where he hopes to learn the skills necessary to save his friends. But as he immerses himself within this new world of sneak and cunning, it becomes clear that there is more to Beaufort’s than meets the eye. In his children’s debut, Burns (This Is Your Everest, for adults) deploys propulsive pacing and action-packed plotting to spin a page-turning, edge-of-the-seat adventure. Meticulously unraveled secrets and personable characters will have readers clamoring for the next volume of this enthralling series starter. Ages 10–up. (Aug.)