Embedded Files
Nina Bawden
I really enjoyed A Handful of Thieves and read it in a day caught up by the adventure of the story and the wonderful characters it contained. Often characters in an adventurous group of children can fall into stereotypes and there was little of that here. Two in particular stood out to me as very well done. Sid is highly intelligent but struggles talking in front of grown ups, he often takes the lead but this becomes a point of contention throughout the story. He has drive to get things done and a strict moral compass about legality, something which puts him at odds in a story where children do not see the law as something that can help them. The interrelationship between law and vigilantes is a recurring topic of the book which looks at issues such as how much you can trust authorities to take the wider view. When Fred’s gran’s money is swindled from her she insists that the police should not be involved as she would prefer to lose the money than risk being seen in the community as a silly old woman and losing her independence. The parallel of children on the edge of gaining independence and old people on the edge of losing it is heightened by Archie, for me the other standout character of the book.
Archie struggles for independence from his overbearing parents who push their high academic expectations onto him and tend to cut off freedoms and money when he, frequently, does not meet them. Archie is almost the opposite of Sid, he struggles at school and is happy to be a follower. He strives to get out from under his parents’ shadow and takes big risks to try to prove his worth to himself and to the group. Through those risks we see sparks of inspiration which highlight the dangers of system which conflates worth and intelligence with academic performance. The fully fledged nature of the children means that they are distinct people whose ways of doing things and expectations often come into conflict – they are a great model of how friendship isn’t about never arguing but about caring for each other beyond that. Clio serves an important roles as the newcomer to the group, making them question how they relate to one another and justify the group roles they have fallen into over time. I would have loved another book with the same characters as I didn't feel Rosie had as much chance to shine as the others and that consequently her character lacked a little depth. The book also raises issues of different forms of poverty – particularly as children, Archie is from the richest family but often has less freedom and, indeed, money than any of the others. These complex, real characters are excellently suited to a lovely cover by Shirley Hughes whose faces are so good at showing emotion, it is a shame there were only cover illustrations.
Like many of the best children’s books it has a great sense of place, the culture and traditions the group has developed around death wall are particularly evocative. I also enjoyed the first person style with little interjections to explain where Fred’s sister disagreed with his stylistic choices. This would be great fun to try to imitate with children and could be a really nice characterful way of developing talk for writing.
Written by Jack.
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