The Thief Lord

The heart of The Thief Lord is a coming-of-age story, and it explores the emotions that often coincide with this stage of life, from impatience to insecurity. In an interview included in the 2020 paperback reprinted edition of The Thief Lord, Funke said the idea for the novel came to her: “[A]s a child, I always wanted to be an adult. So I decided to write a story about a boy who so strongly longs to be a grown-up that he pretends to be one...and makes others believe he is!” The character Funke is referring to here is Scipio, and by contrasting his arc with Prosper’s, the novel explores the differences between wanting to grow up versus actually growing up.

Prosper and Scipio come from very different familial situations. Authors of children’s and middle-grade fiction often use children like Prosper as protagonists because their circumstances require them to grow up faster than the average child. The fact that Prosper has a younger brother to care for shoulders him with even more responsibility. By contrast, Scipio’s parents are both alive and wealthy, so he doesn’t have to worry about providing for himself. Nevertheless, there is some overlap in the boys’ feelings about adulthood. Both boys have been at the mercy of capricious and sometimes cruel adults—ones who do not have the children’s best interests at heart but who nevertheless can make decisions that significantly impact their lives. Prosper’s aunt and uncle have tried to separate him from Bo, while Scipio’s father treats his son with contempt. Consequently, both boys are drawn to the relative power and independence of adulthood, culminating in their search for the merry-go-round: “And suddenly Prosper wished that Scipio were right. He wished that out there, on that island, there really was something that could turn the small and weak into the big and strong” (250).

Where the boys differ, at least initially, is how honest they are about adulthood and their relationship to it. Although Scipio brags that he takes care of his gang, he provides for them by stealing from his parents, so he doesn’t ultimately shoulder the same kind of responsibility that Prosper does. Similarly, he does not consider the more mundane realities of adult life until Victor tells him that adults “[w]ork […] eat, shop, pay bills, use the phone, read newspapers, drink coffee, sleep” (339). Prosper, on the other hand, shows an awareness of adult responsibilities that only deepens over time. Before the narrative even begins, he realizes Bo is sick and decides to go to a policeman for help even though he knows this means they will be separated. He later wonders if Bo would in fact be better off with his aunt and uncle; at another point, he offers to leave the Stella to protect the other children. This willingness to sacrifice demonstrates real maturity, as does Prosper’s understanding of his own mind when he ultimately chooses not to go on the merry-go-round. Ironically, Prosper’s recognition that he wants to be a child and not an adult solidifies his coming-of-age journey.

Similarly, while Scipio does go on the merry-go-round, this is not what marks his own coming of age. Rather, once he is physically an adult, Scipio can let go of the desperation to prove himself that characterized his grown-up persona as the Thief Lord. Rather than bristling at reminders of his youth as he does early in the novel, he embraces his childlike desire for adventure, deciding to become a detective.