Angel Thieves – My Book Review

“The bayou giveth and the bayou taketh away. You can’t

trust her, not for a minute. Give her the sun and she’ll

blind you. Give her the rain and she’ll swallow you. Give

her a storm and she’ll claim your highways and your

bridges. She’ll breach your shiny new buildings, your

waking nightmares, your broken heart.

The bayou’s no angel, that’s a fact.”

This is a book I wish I had tangibly held in my hands while reading it for this review.  The pages of the book hold a story unlike any other I’ve read. Instantaneously, this phantasmagorical and often heart-wrenching story captivated my attention from the first few chapters until the final words. Angel Thieves lands on my memory shelf as one that will not be forgotten.

Various character stories  — from a teenage boy stealing cemetery angels with his dad to a young girl who has a faith I only wish I had to a young girl’s slavery story — makeup Angel Thieves. While you think you are only getting snippets here and there from the often very short chapters, each piece and turn of the page connects the overall story. Being the wildlife and nature girl that I am, by far the most poignant stories for me were of the ocelot and the bayou. Giving Buffalo Bayou and the ocelot voices are what captured and tugged at my heart the most.

All the stories intrinsically wind up connecting with each other in ways that I did not expect.  All my guesses were wrong where I thought this story was headed. With each passing chapter, Kathi Appelt’s well-crafted mystery weaves and unfolds, all the while hiding the secrets quite well.

Kathi Appelt is now an author I will constantly follow with all her books. Her storytelling voice in this book shows her as original and incomparable because it stole pieces of my heart. One thing is for certain: I will never again look at a body of water the same way and most certainly not a wild animal. Who are we to know that they indeed don’t have their own voices? Thank you, Kathi!

An extra tidbit on ocelots!

Here is an interesting ocelot fact:

Fur and pet trades have decimated the ocelot population. In the United States, fewer than sixty ocelots remain in two small populations twenty miles apart in south Texas near the Mexican border.

Hopefully, with the ocelot connection to Zorra’s story in Angel Thieves, it will bring awareness to the need for their continued conservation. I could even see a separate illustrated story about Zorra.

Here is a YouTube link to a baby ocelot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMMKYn7t5l4