Cat Burglar Black

I recently borrowed the book Cat Burglar Black by Richard Sala from the library. I don't think they've had a copy of it for very long, and I try pick up anything that doesn't look like crap, and that I haven't previously read. I haven't seen anything put out by First Second yet that didn't look good, and I really liked Sala's art, even at first glance.

Cat Burglar Black is a story about K, a teenage girl who was raised in an orphanage by the awful Mother Claude who trained her charges to be pickpockets and thieves using heavy handed threats. The story opens with K at a new place, a school with no classes and only three other students. It doesn't take long to get to the real reason the girls have been gathered, and a series of thefts are planned for the group, for the benefit of a group that somehow has ties to K's parents.

The art is different and charming. It has a feeling of being from out of the past, without really pinning itself to a specific time. The girls are lovely and graceful, and the adults are all something akin to grotesques. It seems to evoke a lot of great young adult stories, and made me think of Raold Dahl in particular. Not sure everyone would agree with that, but that is what it made me think of.. There is mystery and some action and such, and it was a fairly quick enjoyable read. I should think that anyone who enjoys Dahl, or stories like a Series of Unfortunate Events, should like this. K is a convincing and self sufficient heroine put into situations beyond her control. She can't succeed without some help, but that doesn't diminish her in any way, and she is anything but helpless.