This is a charming book about two identical twins and the tales throughout their lives from boys to adulthood. Although identical, they are quite different people. One of the twins is quite serious and chooses a steady career whilst the other is a bit naughty and flighty. However, the brothers love each other dearly.

The stories are short enough for bedtime reading, and read a bit like fables, with a moral story to each one.

I thought this was a lovely book.

My thanks to Netgalley and Steerforth Press for the advance copy

This Dutch tale by Tonke Dragt, originally published in 1961, and translated by Laura Watkinson is pure delight from start to finish! The book is a series of adventures of identical twin brothers, Laurenzo and Jiacomo. A cross between a well-loved fairy tale and the merry adventures of Robin Hood, this pair manage to use their wits to escape every villain and misadventure that befalls them.

Each adventure is like a mini-book and will keep children entertained. Readers will wonder how the brothers can possibly land on their feet time and time again. And while one is hard-working and the other more footloose and fancy-free, the one thing that is true for both is their love and unwavering loyalty to one another.

When the last tale was told, I was sad that it had come to end but it was such a wonderful ending, one could hardly be sad. Each chapter was more exciting than the last and each came to the most satisfactory and clever end. I highly recommend this book either as a family read aloud (great book to take along on a car trip!) or a read alone for any age.

Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of The Goldsmoth and the Master Thief from NetGalley for the purpose of review. No other compensation was received and the opinions expressed are my own.

You know when you buy a book and mean to read it, and keep meaning to read it, but never quite get round to it, and then it's adapted for TV and you realise that you've missed the moment, and that now whenever you read it people will assume you've only read it because you'd seen it on Netflix? Yep. That's happened to me with Tonke Dragt's story The Letter for the King, so I was keen to get ahead with her novel The Goldsmith and the Master Thief. I should emphasise that this is a children's story and it's written as such: there are no winks or extra layers of meaning aimed at adults, just a good old-fashioned fable which follows the adventures of two very different (and yet very similar) brothers. Cynics need not apply: in this world, duplicity is always punished, the misguided mend their ways, and the pure of heart are always rewarded. Reading it feels like a deliciously self-indulgent step back in time, to the days when life was simpler.

Jiacomo and Laurenzo are twins, born in the beautiful city of Bainu in the country of Babina, to a poor cobbler and his wife. It's a beginning worthy of a fairy tale, and that's precisely what follows, broken up into short instalments like tales from the Thousand and One Nights, and bound together by a framing narrative. We see the boys exploiting their likeness to play pranks on their school teachers, but the main story gets going when they reach manhood and must choose their paths in life. Although they may look similar, they have markedly different personalities. Laurenzo is quiet, dedicated and methodical, gifted with his hands and suited for a peaceful trade. Jiacomo is livelier, eager for travel and adventure, and unable to stay still for long. Since the twins can't make up their own minds about what they want to do, they decide to leave it to fate: they travel together to a fork in the road on the barren Plain of Babina, and each of them takes one of the forks, agreeing to meet at the same place in a year's time.

By the time that year has passed, each will have found his fate. Laurenzo falls in with the talented goldsmith Master Philippo, who takes his new apprentice back home to Bainu and values Laurenzo as a son. Jiacomo, on the other hand, encounters the charismatic Jannos, who invites him to study a much more dangerous profession: that of the master thief. Although Jiacomo is too public-spirited to make a living as a thief, his remarkable skills will come in useful throughout the rest of his peripatetic and adventurous life. As the brothers grow to manhood, their adventures will tempt them with the prospect of gain through wrongdoing, always challenging them to see what kind of lives they have truly chosen. They face the lure of illicit wealth - a set of gorgeous silver cups, said to be impossible to steal; or a fabled ring which is said to secure the heart of a beautiful woman. There is the trouble caused by love: one of the brothers must decide if he is prepared to do the right thing, and correct a case of mistaken identity, when not doing so might bring him the hand of a lovely wife. And there is the eternal lure of power. When the brothers are shipwrecked separately on the shores of Tirania, each of them is invited to become king in the deeply divided city of Baharan. Can the brothers outwit the members of the factions who have given them such power - and can they keep their purity of heart despite the clear advantages of sliding into corruption?

These stories are charming, but naive. It's pleasant to read them and imagine oneself a child again, in a world where everyone ultimately turns out to be good, and honesty is always rewarded. To adult eyes it's rather implausible that so many people, having been hard-boiled thieves, or furious lords, or sectarian activists, would change their stripes so readily and see the error of their ways, but this book isn't aimed at us. Children, I think, would accept it unquestioningly. To read this is the literary equivalent of curling up with a bowl of spaghetti hoops with party rings for pudding: a conscious step back to childhood. Personally, I like to do this once in a while (with books, I mean, not the spaghetti-hoops part), but it won't appeal to everyone. I realise it'd be helpful to suggest an age range for this book, although I feel rather like an impostor by so doing. I don't have children and it's been some time since I was a child myself, but I get the feeling that eight to ten-year-olds would probably enjoy this - and the chapters, each with their own self-contained adventure, seem to be just the right length for bedtime stories. 

I see from Dragt's Wikipedia page that this was actually her first novel, published in 1961 under the title Verhalen van de tweelingbroers (the Dutch version was renamed De goudsmit en de meesterdief for its 15th edition in 2018 and it's this title which has made it over into English). Since I haven't yet read any of her other novels, I wonder if her books become slightly more complex later on? And I wonder whether The Letter for the King (originally published in 1962) has the same feel as this, or whether that's written for slightly older children, and thus more engaging for adults?

This review will be published on my blog on 2 May 2020 at the following link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/02/the-goldsmith-and-the-master-thief-1961-tonke-dragt

Modern classic with a fairy/folk tale feel. Fantastic stories of twin brothers' adventures.

I just love this author, she manages to create authentically medieval/fantasy characters and settings for a modern audience and make you feel they could have been written and shared hundreds of years ago. The Letter for the King has never left me, and these episodic incidents are just as fairy-tale-like.

A tale told in parts, it's the life story of twins Laurenzo and Jiacomo, identical sons with mischief in their good-natured hearts. Close and loyal, their childhood capers become more serious as they are abruptly forced to make their own ways in the world. Though identical on the surface, the two brothers are very different young men, and choose different paths. But twins are never too far apart in stories such as these, and their love for each other, as well as their physical similarities, will play important roles in each other's escapades.

I got picked up by this, carried away in the fairy tale-ness of it all. Refreshing for these kinds of yarns these days, it's the male characters taking centre stage, not a Disney princess-type. A narrative of brothers helping each other, both honourable, though on different paths, one becomes apprentice to a goldsmith, the other inadvertently finds his mentor is a master thief. These skills will all find a place in their later lives.

It all ties together beautifully, as royals and castles and mysteries, beautiful women and villains all step onto the path ahead of the twins' life journeys. The brothers are more than archetypes, they move outside the usual prince/miller's son simple cliché, and I loved the many different familiar settings and stories that they find themselves part of.

I could have read much more of their lives, and would definitely recommend it to young readers who are confident by themselves. There's a sly sense of humour running through this, children will enjoy the sibling rivalries/devotion and all the obstacles they meet and have to overcome in this Middle Age-fantasy setting.

For ages 8-12, and anyone older who loves a good traditional story.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing an advance reading copy.

Very interesting translation of a set of interwoven fairy tales. It's a pleasure to read and would be, I think, even better read out loud over the course of a series of story times or bedtime stories. I know I chose to read a chapter a night and very much enjoyed the experience!

A couple of years ago, when I turned the last page of Tonke Dragt’s The Letter for the King, I felt like I had travelled back in time. I felt I had mingled with knights on horses, visited medieval forts, and met quirky characters that made my head spin, along the way. I felt rejuvenated at the end of it.

That’s exactly how I feel now after reading The Goldsmith and the Master Thief. I was swept along, right from the beginning, on the many rip-roaring adventures that the twin brothers Laurenzo and Jiacomo get into.

Most of the 12 stories are anchored on mistaken identities and the situations that ensue because of how much the brothers resemble each other. But they have very different personalities – Laurenzo is the steady, practical, and sensible sort while Jiacomo is the restless thrill-seeker, always ready for something new – which they leverage to their benefit, working as a team.

Through it all there are strong themes of loyalty, honesty, and kinship that I saw in The Letter for the King, as well. But what I particularly liked in The Goldsmith and the Master Thief is a strong thread of conscience and a belief in fact vs fiction. Without giving away spoilers I can say the Eighth Tale of the Inn of Elvenghest is a prime example.

If there is any magic at all, it’s in Dragt’s writing, so wonderfully brought alive by Laura Watkinson’s skilful translation. It’s what makes this book such a delightful and arresting read not just for children but also for adults.

A big thank you to Pushkin Press for this ARC. I can’t wait to read more of Dragt!

‘The Goldsmith and the Master Thief’ is a collection of stories, one following on from another, in which Jiacomo and Laurenzo, identical twins, one a skilled jewellery maker and one with questionable skills but no profession, capitalise on their striking similarity in their various adventures to create confusion and outrage as well as to solve mysteries and engineer daring escapes. The multiple cases of mistaken identity entail, among other fiascos, both brothers being crowned king of the same island, cunningly evading house arrest and incarceration in palace dungeons, and trying to avoid the inevitable confusion when they each fall in love. Throughout, run themes of loyalty , honesty, and what it is to have integrity even when faced with great temptation. The subject of two brothers, their love for one another, and their steadfastness despite the different courses they have chosen in life and the consequential differences in their standing in the community, is one not often tackled in childrens’ fiction, and therefore all the more worth the reading.
The translation, I found to be clunky in places – the mix of language and turn of phrase is mostly in keeping with the traditional folk genre to which the book belongs, but occasional inconsistencies and modern turns of phrase are glaringly out of place. Nevertheless, this is the sort of rare find seldom equalled in contemporary children’s fiction; simple stories, well executed, with clever denouements and twists of fate – extremely wholesome and enjoyable. I’m intrigued by Tonke Dragt’s other writing, also published by Pushkin in their bid to translate and bring to English-reading audiences children’s fiction from around the world, and will definitely be adding them to my list of books to be read!

This was a fascinating book about twin brothers Jacomo and Laurenzo. From their childhood towards adulthood, the troubles they cause and the trouble that finds them are told in these shortened tales, told almost as moral tales.
I adored the style of writing and found I couldn’t end the book until I had finished each tale.
It all begins with tricking their teacher so they each only have to attend school every other day. Although they miss each other terribly and end that capade by attending together. They want different things after school and the loss of their parents, so they split up, promising to meet exactly a year to the day.
However, trouble finds them and they both rescue the other at different times in their lives. Almost a comedy of errors, you can see what they must do and how they need to help. Funny at times, while others, more dangerous antics ensue.

A brilliant read and I could see being incredibly popular,