The Lost Prince

Twelve-year-old Marco has never known a home. Raised in secrecy by his father, trained in languages and the ways of a gentleman, he has spent his life moving through foreign cities as a ghost, never speaking of where he comes from, never staying long enough to belong. But when father and son settle in the grimy streets of London, Marco's carefully controlled world cracks open. He meets The Rat, a hunchbacked leader of street urchins who dreams of adventure, and together they uncover the legend of Prince Ivor, the Lost Prince of Samavia, vanished five centuries ago during a time of betrayal and war. Could Marco's father be descended from the lost prince? Could their exile finally end? This is a story about a boy searching for his identity, about the hunger to belong somewhere, about the courage it takes to hope when you have nothing but a legend. Burnett captures something universal: the ache of feeling rootless, the desperate wish that your life might mean something.