Heist Society

Heist Society

Carter, Ally, 2010.

Heist Society.
New York: Hyperion Books.
304 pages, hardcover.
$16.99

ISBN 9781423116394.

Format: book
Rating: 4.5/5.0 stars

Plot Summary

After being raised in a family whose idea of a vacation is to case an art museum or steal crown jewels, Katarina Bishop decides she’s had enough. At age fifteen, she commits a little con of her own to get into the perfect boarding school in New England, beyond the reach of her family. What she doesn’t expect is to be expelled after just a few months, as a way for her family to reel her back in for the next big job. And this heist, even Kat can’t pass up.

Her father, one of the world’s most talented art thieves, is accused of stealing paintings from a mobster who doesn’t believe that Kat’s dad is innocent and is threatening physical retribution if he doesn’t get his art back; he’s given Kat just two weeks to pull off the heist of a lifetime.

With friend and billionaire confidante, Hale, Kat puts together a team of teens who want to track down the real thief and steal the paintings back. Traipsing between Paris and New York, Las Vegas and Italy, Austria and Poland, England, Italy and finally France, Kat and her crew have thought of everything, but she is no master thief; will their plan work?

Critical Evaluation

Ally Carter draws the reader in from the first chapter, with the expulsion of Kat from her boarding school. Heist Society is a fast-paced, action-packed read that has a James Bond meets teen prodigy kind of feel; I wouldn’t expect less with a fifteen-year-old born into an exciting and dangerous family thieving business. Like or not, Kat has been groomed and in training for this heist since birth.

Since escaping the family doesn’t seem possible, Kat is pulled back in much more quickly than I would have expected after working so diligently to put distance between them and her. However, it quickly becomes evident that she is her father’s daughter, as Carter lays out a series of Kat’s plans. Two weeks doesn’t seem nearly long enough to plan this type of caper, yet Carter’s use of references made through Kat’s uncle of infamous aliases recognized in the art world, aliases that take credit for the most incredible, impossible heists ever somehow give credence to Kat’s plans and the likelihood that she just might be able to pull this heist.

Reader’s Annotation

When your dad is a renowned art thief accused of stealing a valuable collection from a mobster and you know he didn’t do it, what do you do? Well, when the family business involves making acquisitions through devious means – you track and down and steal it back, of course.

Information About the Author

Ally Carter was born and raised, with her older sister, in Oklahoma by parents who were farmers and ranchers. She was very active in high school, attended both Oklahoma State University and Cornell University. She is living back in Oklahoma as a full-time writer (Carter, Detailed bio, 2011).

In 2005, she published her first novel Cheating at Solitaire. The following year, she published her first YA novel, I’d Tell You I Love You but Then I’d Have to Kill You. Later that same year, the sequel to Cheating at Solitaire was published Learning to Play Gin (Carter, Detailed bio, 2011).

The inspiration for Heist Society came in 2007, while Ally was listening to Andrew Clement’s Room One on audiobook. When she heard the line, “I was a cat burglar in my own house…” she knew she had to write a book about a girl, whose name would be Kat and was a burglar. Hence, Heist Society was born (Carter, Story behind story, 2011).

Genre

Fiction: Contemporary – passions: art

Read-Alikes

Harley’s Ninth by Cat Bauer

What my Girlfriend Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Curriculum Ties

Read through the lens of psychology and human behaviors, the Heist Society could prove to be an interesting study of how cons are successful.

Booktalking Ideas
1) Kat’s bio, starting with her family trips to case museums or steal valuables

2) conversation between Kat and Taccone, the mobster who gives Kat a ride to the airport so they can chat about his two-week offer

Book Trailer Links
Book Trailer by the Author
Book Trailer by a Reader

Reading Level/Interest Age
Grades 6 - 10 / Ages 11 and up

Challenge Issues
crime family, cons, art thieves, international heist, kidnapping

First, I would share some of the recommendations used as part of the selection process, including reviews from resources as noted below. Next, I would point out the value in allowing these types of materials to be optional reading as teens grow ever closer to adulthood and making their own decisions. Finally, following our school district’s policy #KEC, after explaining that our school district’s philosophy is that no parent or group of parents has the right to determine the reading matter for children other than their own, I would refer the parent or community member to the building principal, so that he/she can file a written complaint to begin the process of review.

Awards

ALA’s Teens’ Top Ten, 2010

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Young Adult Fiction, 2010

Why Title Included & Selection Tools

Heist Society was selected because it has a great blend of story-lines with family, crime and teenage ingenuity, while engrossing readers with a fast-paced action caper that offers them a chance to laugh more than a couple of times.

School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist