Thieves: Ten stories of surprising heists, comical capers and daring escapades

Schroeder, Andreas. Thieves: Ten stories of surprising heists, comical capers and daring escapades. Annick Press, 2005.

From the theft of the Mona Lisa to the story of an 18th century French cleric who stole and ate 15 files per week to prevent innocent people from being executed, this book offers up gripping stories of real-lives thieves from the past 150 years. The stories are dramatized in suspenseful prose that splits the difference between storytelling and journalism, offering both the historical facts and the unanswered questions for consideration. The book starts with an introduction that briefly highlights some of the stranger stories of theft in history and gives a sense of the breadth of professional thievery, and ends with the sources for this and the ten central stories. With ten years of experience reporting on famous hoaxes and scams for a national radio program, Schroeder is the perfect candidate to author a book on this topic, and he pulls it off well.

Considered in the context of the buzz about information books as excellent resources for enticing reluctant readers or supporting those learning a new language, this book does not entirely fit the model. The book is entirely text-based and so, other than the factual origins of the stories, this book resembles many fiction books. The fact that it is divided into ten short sections may make it less intimidating to read than a novel, but generally it does not have the initial appeal of many informational books based on their highly visual format, small accessible blocks of text, and appealing graphic layout. This may be partly since the book appears to be aimed at an older audience, probably up to grade nine or ten. The appeal of this book is not the format but the content: It will appeal not to those who feel novels are too hard but to those who prefer learning about exciting real-life stories. Even so, the cover does little to sell the book, with a painted bank robbery scene reminiscent of older adventure novels which somehow falls short of retro-cool. This is a shame since the content is well-written and the high-action subject matter will have great appeal to many readers.

***1/2 out of 4

Looking at other reviews: Ann G. Brouse's review in Library School Journal (via Amazon.com) agrees about the suspense and excitement of the stories, but she chooses to focus more on describing the content of several chapters which makes sense since this is the strength of the book.