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Type of bind: Paperback
EAN num: 9780064409940
ISBN number: 0064409945
Label: HarperTrophy
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 224
Printing Date: February 01, 2002
Publishing house: HarperTrophy
Age index: Ages 9-12
Release Date: February 05, 2002
Sale Popularity Level: 87412
Studio: HarperTrophy
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Product Description:
Mr. Hood's Holiday House has stood for a thousand years, welcoming countless children into its embrace. It is a place of miracles, a blissful rounds of treats and seasons, where every childhood whim may be satisfied...
There is a price to be paid, of course, but young Harvey Swick, bored with his life and beguiled by Mr. Hood's wonders, does not stop to consider the consequences. It is only when the House shows it's darker face -- when Harvey discovers the pitiful creatures that dwell in its shadows -- that he comes to doubt Mr. Hood's philanthropy.
The House and its mysterious architect are not about to release their captive without a battle, however. Mr. Hood has ambitious for his new guest, for Harvey's soul burns brighter than any soul he has encountered in a thousand years...
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Rated by buyers 
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"The Thief of Always" is deeply creepy. A young boy is persuaded to visit at Holiday House by a stranger called Rictus, where every day has all the fun of childhood's favorite holidays. As days go on, there is some really fishy about what is happening to his friends there.
Toned down from Clive Barker's most powerful horror, "Thief of Always" demonstrated the author's ability to inspire dread and unease by tapping into the common underlying existiential fears. To heck with the big words, Clive Barker uses lots of little bits of imagery to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Everything about Rictus seems too good to be true, but slightly wrong. Everything about Holiday House seems too good to be true, but slightly wrong. The depth of wrongness emerges as the tale goes on.
I enjoyed it, but it was written for tweens and teens. I'm not sure that the best balance between character development, plot development, and writing for younger folks was struck, but it was still pretty darn good.
E. M. Van Court
Rated by buyers 
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I've enjoyed other Clive Barker works. Recently a fellow teacher recommended The Thief of Always as a read aloud. I needed something that would keep the students interested and open them up to new ideas. This book fits that bill.
I just finished reading it myself and I can't wait to read it to them. I was hanging on every chapter; I think the students will be as well.
Rated by buyers -
Once again Clive Barker has taken me on an amazing journey, perfect for adults and children (10+) alike. Definate recommendation.
Rated by buyers -
Ten-year-old Harvey is bored. He is sitting in his bedroom one February afternoon, watching the rain outside, feeling as bored as he's ever felt. He feels like he might die of boredom. Then, to his surprise, a little person flies through his window. This little man promises Harvey a wonderful vacation where he'll have lots and lots of fun--as long as he doesn't ask any questions. Harvey isn't quite sure about going with the man.
However, a week later, the man shows back up and Harvey decides that maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to go with him just for a little while. So Harvey walks with him across town through a high wall that isn't really a wall, into a place of magic. Here, at the Holiday House, everyone gives Harvey everything he's ever wanted. Every day holds all of the seasons--in the morning it's like springtime, in the afternoon it's summer, in the early eveing it's fall and time to go trick-or-treating, and in the later evening it's winter and Christmastime. There are two other children there with Harvey--Wendell and Lulu. Lulu, though, has started to go a little bit crazy, so Harvey and Wendell don't spend much time with her.
Harvey intends to only stay at the Holiday House for a few days, but after a couple of reassuring phone calls to his parents when they tell him they want him to stay, he begins to relax. However, he shouldn't relax too much. There are some strange things going on at the Holiday House that aren't fun and exciting. Will Harvey figure out what is going on in time to escape?
I liked the whole idea of the Holiday House--what a perfect vacation spot for little children! I also liked the characters of Rictus, Jive, Marr and Carna. They embodied all characteristics that would be useful for keeping children there. I thought a couple of things weren't believable, though. Harvey seemed to have an undue attachment to Lulu. He barely even knew her, but he was very concerned about her, more so than most ten-year-olds would be. I also didn't buy Harvey's thievery toward the end of the story. It seemed less possible than the rest of the story.
Rated by buyers 
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A ten-year-old boy named Harvey, bored with his life, falls to the wiles of a seductively welcoming being named Rictus, and becomes a guest at a seemingly wondrous place called Holiday House. At Holiday House, each fun-filled day contains four seasons: and seasons at their very best. The springtime which comes each morning ushers in blossoming flowers and explosions of greenery; the summers that fill the afternoons are always those rare perfect kind one experiences but a few times in the school-less, cloud-less summertime of youth; the autumns that ripens as evening sets in sees the trees dyed with bright colors, as the air cools and the breeze smells sweetly of the bounty of unseen fields. And then winter takes over the night, cold, crisp, perfect for sleeping-in or sitting beside a crackling fire. It's all too good to be true---which of course it is.
Clive Barker's dark fantasy, part fairy tale and part horror story, is clearly intended as a vehicle for appreciative adults to rekindle some of the lost themes of childhood, when the world was simultaneously magical and threatening. In this the imaginative Liverpudlian nearly succeeds. The one serious flaw in The Thief of Always is the same one I've found in nearly everything Clive Barker has written, and that is...as best I can describe it...his story lacks a soul. I don't know any other way to put it. This registers in the ease with which Barker's characters can later be put out of mind, and the acceptance one experiences when something terrible happens to someone we've just spent the last however-many pages reading about. I know legions of Barker fans won't agree with me there, but I have always sensed that about Clive Barker's works, be it The Books of Blood, The Damnation Game, Weaveword, Cabal, or even here, in what was mostly a charming, dark little story.
The Thief of Always is good, it's just not THAT good. It's like a trip through a shattered looking glass; it's flat in a few spots, it's neither character nor plot-driven, and it rushes past far too fast in places where I found myself wishing we could linger. Where Bradbury or King might have gotten the dark fantasy elements right in a tale like this and rendered The Thief of Always an everlasting classic, Barker is just not up to the task.
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