⇒ Read The Child Thief A Novel Brom 9780061671333 Books

The Child Thief A Novel Brom 9780061671333 Books

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The Child Thief A Novel Brom 9780061671333 Books

BROM, The Child Thief:

This was hard for me to get into as I am not inclined to read non-fiction for hours. I read a lot but don’t enjoy Young Adult titles. In the beginning, that was my impression of this. I saw that it had some adult themes and rough language but not enough to change my perceptions. (I had recently watched the movie Pan and was very sad.) However the last forty percent of the Child Thief finally delivered.
More insight was the Author’s Note in the back from Brom himself. In Barrie’s version Peter’s god complex revolved around having child-like adventures and convincing other children to be part of this. Peter is a charismatic sociopath who is teaching stolen children to become blood thirsty killers, denying the moral rules of society. Peter seduces with offers that these children that they will never grow up- but not eternal life. Brom’s explanation of what happens when these children do grow-up is appalling and so obvious we slap our forehead that we could have missed it.
Like our modern literary sociopath Hannibal Lechter, he does terrible things but can seduce others of his twisted worldview even to the point of convincing them to take part. For our Hannibal, killing isn’t really the point-he couldn’t care either way and doesn’t get a rush as he does it. Peter needs to always be in a new adventure but has no real long-term memory- he’s in it for the momentary thrill. His thrill seeking leaves a lot of hats on the ground.
Using Nick the main character’s voice, Brom invites us to wear our big-boy pants, wiping the fairy dust from our eyes and really look at the original Peter Pan to see Peter for who he is; Not as a child-like friend we all know and love. He is a seducer of children, a manipulator and blood thirsty murderer.


Tags : The Child Thief: A Novel [Brom] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The acclaimed artist Brom brilliantly displays his multiple extraordinary talents in <em>The Child Thief</em>—a spellbinding re-imagining of the beloved Peter Pan story that carries readers through the perilous mist separating our world from the realm of Faerie. As Gregory Maguire did with his <em>New York Times </em>bestselling <em>Wicked</em> novels,Brom,The Child Thief: A Novel,Harper Voyager,0061671339,Fantasy - Contemporary,Abused children;Fiction.,Child soldiers;Fiction.,Fantasy fiction.,Abused children,Child soldiers,FICTION Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology,FICTION Fantasy Contemporary,FICTION Fantasy Dark Fantasy,FICTION Horror,Fantasy,Fantasy - General,Fiction,Fiction - Fantasy,Fiction-Fantasy,GENERAL,General Adult,Peter Pan (Fictitious character),SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,United States

The Child Thief A Novel Brom 9780061671333 Books Reviews

Not all fairy tales have a happy ending, or a happy beginning or middle either. Brom’s highly-imaginative yet brutal version of Peter Pan, The Child Thief, is one of those fairy tales. This is not a story for children or for those adults that prefer to live with a Disney-like innocence. This story is as harsh and ugly as the Disney version was sweet, and it is brilliant. It is written from the hands of an illustrator, and the words and style are distinctly visual.

Peter Pan is not a nice guy, but he is not a bad guy. He is young. He is charming. “Peter’s smile is a most contagious thing.” He is also manipulative and cruel. He preys on those children who had lost their hope, who have been abused, raped or cruelly-beaten. The story begins with Peter saving a young girl from getting raped. He gives these children dreams and takes them to a place of nightmares. That place is not Neverland. It is called Avalon in Brom’s version, and though it was once a lush paradise, it has been poisoned and is dying. Adults had come to the once-fantastic island and spoiled it. Captain Hook, the “Captain,” is among those adults. As a result, Peter has waged war against them and is fighting for the survival of his home. Peter needs an army though and that army is comprised of scared children trapped and forced to make the best of the strange ugly place. Things are not quite that simple, of course, and as the story moves along, we find out the depth of the characters and their motivations.

I’m going to avoid getting into too much of a spoiler territory here, but I truly enjoyed this book. In some ways, I found it an exploration of dogmatism. Both Peter and the Captain are dogmatic about their views. They are both so focused on what they think and what they want to accomplish, that they lose sight of what they are actually doing and how cruel it is. How much more cruel can someone be than killing and torturing children, or sending children to be killed and tortured? Both Peter and the Captain manipulate others with no real regard to what they are asking. They each simply need an army to help them fight their war. Interestingly, Peter manipulated from a perception of strength and the Captain manipulated from a perception of weakness. Ironically, they were both focused on something good. Unfortunately, those two good goals were in opposition to each other and since the main characters were so dogmatic about their views, they couldn’t work together so that both of them could accomplish what they wanted. The Captain himself at one point wonders, “How much blood will it take to make them stop? How many more children must die?”
That said, neither Peter nor the Captain are all bad. They both find themselves at points where they seem to start to understand that things are going too far. That understanding however is not enough though to get them to work together.

David J. Rollins
Author of [...]
I read Brom’s book “Krampus” and was greatly entertained by his story. Once again I can say that that I was thoroughly entertained by the imagination of Brom. If you liked “Krampus”, you will like “The Child Thief” even more. I sure did. Brom rewrites the story of “Peter Pan” on a mature level. Peter is just like the immature Peter you know, but on a more dark and violent level. Peter takes children off to a magical land, called Avalon. Avalon is filled with magic, beasts, elves, fairies, witches and yes, pirates.
He picks only certain children. The damaged and the lost. A lot of the children’s backstories dive into serious/extreme cases of child abuse. If you are sensitive to these subjects, then I do not suggest this book. I have read reviews where the subject matter of the children did bother them and disapproved of this as a good read. I can see why. But that is the point of Peter’s past as well. He too was an unwanted child and wanted to create a family of his own in Avalon. But Avalon is not what the children think it to be like. There is a large amount of descriptive action-violence. Like a hack n slash movie. This is Brom’s style of writing, and Avalon is at war in which the children partake in. The Queen is at war with the pirates, the Queen’s nephew is at war with Peter, and Peter is at war with the Pirates. A lot of room for intrigue, politics, and backstabbing.
The magic in Avalon creates children to never age and adults to go mad. Brom intertwines a lot of Scottish, Irish and Welsh pagan lore weaved into the characters and their adventure. I thought that it was a very creative way to retell stories that have been told over generations.
I loved how this story is a complete tragedy. Do not expect it to end in sunshine and rainbows, depending on who you are rooting for. I felt that the ending was not a total loss.
This book is physically large, which did make it difficult to hold sometimes. It is not in a large font format. 482 Pages. I was intimidated by the size of this book. Brom is not too over descriptive so I was able to speed read through a lot of the book and still be able to retain the information. The artwork in the book is great. Makes it feel like a child's fairy tale. This is a book I love and am glad to have in my collection. For mature audiences only.
BROM, The Child Thief

This was hard for me to get into as I am not inclined to read non-fiction for hours. I read a lot but don’t enjoy Young Adult titles. In the beginning, that was my impression of this. I saw that it had some adult themes and rough language but not enough to change my perceptions. (I had recently watched the movie Pan and was very sad.) However the last forty percent of the Child Thief finally delivered.
More insight was the Author’s Note in the back from Brom himself. In Barrie’s version Peter’s god complex revolved around having child-like adventures and convincing other children to be part of this. Peter is a charismatic sociopath who is teaching stolen children to become blood thirsty killers, denying the moral rules of society. Peter seduces with offers that these children that they will never grow up- but not eternal life. Brom’s explanation of what happens when these children do grow-up is appalling and so obvious we slap our forehead that we could have missed it.
Like our modern literary sociopath Hannibal Lechter, he does terrible things but can seduce others of his twisted worldview even to the point of convincing them to take part. For our Hannibal, killing isn’t really the point-he couldn’t care either way and doesn’t get a rush as he does it. Peter needs to always be in a new adventure but has no real long-term memory- he’s in it for the momentary thrill. His thrill seeking leaves a lot of hats on the ground.
Using Nick the main character’s voice, Brom invites us to wear our big-boy pants, wiping the fairy dust from our eyes and really look at the original Peter Pan to see Peter for who he is; Not as a child-like friend we all know and love. He is a seducer of children, a manipulator and blood thirsty murderer.