The Magic of Venice and ‘The Thief Lord’

by Jessica A. Beck

When I first read Cornelia Funke's The Thief Lord, I couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. I was a girl infatuated with the idea of running off. I could get lost anywhere: the grocery store, a library, even my own neighborhood. As I wandered, so did my imagination. Eager to devour whatever was in front of me, I dove into the novel. I quickly slipped into the pages, and soon I too was one of the orphans in Funke’s story, slinking about the back alleys of Venice.
I was unsure what the Venice of reality shared with the Venice of The Thief Lord. In the book, Venice had al...