The Talent Thief

by Alex Williams

Wealthy orphans Adam and Cressida Bloom couldn't be less alike. Adam can't seem to help being exceedingly ordinary whereas Cressida, his glamorous sister, has a magnificent talent - when she sings, even the birds stop to listen. Then Cressida is invited to perform at Fortescue's festival of young talents and Adam tags along. But once the children arrive at the festival, in a mountain-top hotel, their terrific talents begin to mysteriously disappear. A piano virtuoso suddenly forgets how to play, a maths genius finds she can no longer multiply. There's a sinister shadow that only Adam ever sees, a strange glow emanating from behind closed doors.With the help of an erratic ex-racing driver, dashing Amy Swift, Adam and Cressida rip-roar off through the mountains in Amy's shiny racing car, the Silver Swift. They are in perilous pursuit of the dastardly talent thief! But from a hair-raisingly close shave with an avalanche to crash landing a plane on a runway the size of a table, Adam never gives up. Perhaps, he isn't as ordinary as he first thought!

Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Adventure, Childrens, Juvenile

336 pages, Paperback

First published July 6, 2006

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute story with lots of great values... especially that talents are for sharing, and the greatest talent of all is to think of others before oneself.

12-year-old Adam Bloom has always considered himself an average guy. How could he have award-winning skaters for parents and a sister (Cressida) with a voice so perfect it can shatter glass?

When Cressida receives an invitation to the Festival of Youthful Genius, Adam accompanies her. He finds himself surrounded by so many talented children that he cannot help but believe that mediocrity is his lot in life. He soon discovers, however, that being average has its advantages, for the organizer plans to steal the skills of every child genius present. As the only ‘talentless’ attendee, Adam can safely lead the charge to retrieve them—or so he thinks.

The fact is, Adam has two talents that cannot be taken: a well-formed conscience and a pure heart. His sense of justice compels him to hunt down and retrieve the stolen talents and restore them to their rightful owners. His habit of focusing on the people around him enables him to risk his life even for those who have not earned his trust or loyalty. And his nobility has the power to awaken the dulled consciences of others.

For preteens who love action adventures, and parents who prefer heroes with character, Alex Williams has the answer in this suspenseful novel.

[Solveig Asplund · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this first when I was around 11 and I think it's held up pretty well since then. Fun concept, fun plot, charming voice. Would be incredibly motivating if I were a 12 year old boy without much talent. Moderately moving as a 21 year old girl with not much talent either. Moral of the story: you don't need a talent... but if you do have one it's very cool and helpful.

[Daisy May Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across The Talent Thief in one of those random shelf-browsing moments and was massively pleased to discover it. I did a lot of work in the final year of my MA on gifted and talented characters in children's literature and The Talent Thief intrigued me from the start.

Adam and Cressida Bloom are orphans, living in a fractious relationship with each other and their guardian, Uncle Brody. One day Cressida Bloom is invited to a Talent competition to showcase her beautiful singing voice. And, due to not wanting to stay at home with their Uncle, the very much not-talented Adam wangles a place for himself on the trip. The two siblings arrive at the competition where they are surrounded by magnificently talented individuals. That is, until something awful starts to happen. The talented children start losing their talents. Somebody - or something - is stealing them.

The Talent Thief is a bit of a interesting book and a little bit of a disappointment all at the same time. It starts so promisingly. And I mean that, it really does start promisingly. We have a machiavellian, moustache-twirling villain who borders on the pantomime but also on the genuinely unnerving. The Talent Thief is a glorious conceit and comes across as a mysterious and distinctly scary entity.

And then we get a little bit awkward. The Talent Thief, it seems, doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Is it James Bond, Jules Verne or Tim Burton? It is a quandry and, I think, one that is not helped by the illustrations in the book. The first full page illustration appears on p182 (of a 327page book which feels a little poorly balanced but I digress). The illustration is of a spikey mountain scene, all length and cliff, and The Talent Thief takes centre stage in a distinctly gothic-tinged black stylised manner. It's an awkward image, beautiful in an isolated context, but jarring with a book that to me so far was reading like a fantastical Ruritanian adventure. (I will note here for your information that I am referencing a different edition than that specified in the cover image: Macmillan 2006)

It's a shame that there's this unease between the design and the text, for the story itself is quite good. It runs along at an excellent rate and I, on a very nerd level, appreciated how talent, and the management of talent, was presented. Adam's a brave, bright hero and I loved the sidekicks that he picked up during the adventure. I did have some slight issue with the ending (it veered off in a very unexpected direction that made me do a bit of a double-take), but I wonder if this is something to do with my inability to grasp the genre of this book.

Readers who enjoyed this book may also enjoy Helen Cresswell's brilliant Bagthorpe books. Although distinctly more slapstick than The Talent Thief, I found a lot of similarities between the two. The first book in the series is Ordinary Jack

[Jonathan Daley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and very enjoyable!

[Andrija Nesic]

Title: The Talent Thief
Author: Alex Williams
This book is fiction.
This genre of the book is adventure.
I chose to read this book because the cover of the book attracted me and I was really interested how is the cover of the book connected to the title of the book. That’s why this book attracted me to read it.
This book is about a talented girl named Cressida and a boy named Adam. Those kids were adopted and Cressida Adams sister was invited to Fortescue’s festival where she had to sing but all the sudden children's talent started to disappear…
The setting of this book is nowadays set.
This story takes place in Cressida’s and Adam’s home, in Fortescue's Festival of Youthful Talents, train, plane and train station. The main characters in the book are Cressida and Adam. Adam’s main challenge is that he wants to get talent.

At the beginning of the this story it made me feel sad because Adam had to sleep on top of building Fortescue's Festival of Youthful Talents because he did not have any talent but at the end it made me happy because Adam realised he got talent for something. The characters did seem real in this book. The scary bit was when Adam saw some stranger on the roof of the building, but for me there were no funny parts. This story made happy, excited, nervous a bit, curious, scared and sad. My favorite part of the book when they Cressida and Adam came to Fortescue's Festival of Youthful Talents, I was very excited to what will happen next in the book. I would recommend this book to my friend to show that talent is very important in your life. My recommendation age for this book is gonna be over 10 years. My rating for this book i going to be 9/10.

[Alin Bc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this book should be read by every kid because of its concept. There are a lot of kids who think that they are useless and this books proves that everyone has a talent.

[Nyx · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading The Talent Thief very much. Very light with a lot of learnings. I will definitely save this for my niece's library.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 4.5 stars

[Elmore Wenholz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book that I consciously thought ‘this is my favourite book’ about.
That was a little while back and I’ve read better books since then, but this amazing little book still holds a place in my top 10.
I am a big fan of Alex Williams, even though I’ve only read two out of three of his books, but both of the books that I’ve read are do fun and ultimately different from anything I’ve ever read. The way he illustrates his scenes is just so unique and beautiful, it’s hard to describe. His plots are so fun and whimsical, yet at t he e same time completely understandable.
There is really no way to describe Alex Williams’ style, so I guess you’ll just have to read it, won’t you.

[Book Elf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a fast easy-read as the Silver Swift (racing car) of Amy Swift. A story about talents and the extraordinary talent thief that was bound to make a difference on the lives of Adam and Cressida Bloom; and Amy Swift and Saul Shafer.

I liked this book. While reading it, I felt I was reading the Mysterious Benedict Society but the on a totally wrong side of it. Because the main character here was absolutely plain, without any talent at all. It was fascinating how Adam Bloom displayed such heroism and great character even though he is not blessed with talent and that how he loved his sister and will do anything for her. He also was selfless. Wow! If I have a brother like Adam, I will cherish him and will not think he is any way annoying.

I recommend this book to children as it has so many great values. I also like the creativeness of the author on his thief. Very different. The character of the villain here was hateful but I like how it fit the evilness of his plan.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is talent innate, or something you have a passion for and practice hard at? This story thinks it is something innate that can be stolen, despite long practice. Perhaps this concept is too theoretical for middle grade readers to bother over while the plot barrels along. Adam Bloom, the central character, is known to everybody as someone who has no talent; in contrast to his older sister Cressida who is a very talented singer. Yet Adam demonstrates bravery, kindness, drive and an ability to reach out and make friends and support the obnoxious Cressida. Are these not talents? Who defines what a talent is? Pedestrian language, flat and unpleasant characters and mediocre sense of place may not matter to those readers who only want their stories to be non-stop action, but it does to me.

[Jessica Gallagher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not a fan of the writing style and found the characters flat and confusing at the same time. Cressida I found particularly irritating. The concepts were quite cool, particularly that of talents and whether they can be learned/created/earned and that question of what is a talent and does it matter in the scheme of things. It was pretty action packed, but even this felt a bit disjointed and random at times. This one was recommended to me, so I was really hoping to like it, but unfortunately I found it a bit of a slog.

[Neill Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Adam's sister, Cressida, is invited to a festival of youthful talents because of her incredible singing ability, he goes along to get away from their guardian uncle. But the festival turns out to be more of a collection of talents than a celebration of talents and Adam is drawn into an intrique involving a unique creature, a greedy entrepreneur, a fading race car driver, and a shepherd, and a search for talents.

[Kaitlyn Tiller]

The Talent Thief is a really good book. It's about a creature who steals talent spheres and he doesn't know what he's doing and he just listens to his so called friend. But then he finds out that he can do better than stealing talents from kids. So the book has kind of a moral to it, Always find good friends who doesn't make you do something you don't want to do.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

It reads like it was written for children. Every emotion is overexplained and the dialogue pushes quips too hard. The flat characters aren't very sympathetic, and the villain is wickedly one-dimensional. the already-obvious lessons are written out in speeches given by the protagonists.

The only character I felt anything for was the Creature, the talent thief himself. Huh.

[Cecilia Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

William's plot has an intriguing concept: What if it were possible to steal someone's talent.
Twelve year old Alex Bloom is ordinary, unlike his sixteen year old sister, Cressida, who is a talented singer.
When a mysterious figure steals Cressida's talent, Alex investigates and goes off in pursuit to get his sister's talent back.

[Loripdx]

Meh. Read at least half the book and was bored the whole time. Sometimes juvenile books are very engaging; unfortunately, this was seemed to be trying too hard. Too bad, since the premise was quite clever.

[Jordan Arnold]

28/12/07: I got this book for christmas from my grandparents and I hope I get a chance to read it soon.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

GREAT story! I'm keeping an eye on this author. Late elementary/middle reader. Admirable underdog protagonist and lots and lots of action. Could appeal to boys or girls, I think.

[Ave21 · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was very exiting i wound recomend it to everybody

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great, loved it I am defiantly more like Adam than Cress.

[Linda Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun exciting read. Great for children, it's target audience.

[Mica · Rating 5 out of 5]

my fav book through the summer!

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cute story. Follows a boy as he goes to a seminar with his sister and does not fit in.