The Mystery of the Colour Thief is a very atmospheric middle grade novel about a girl dealing with fear and loss and trying to make sense of her world. 
Dealing with the grief of her mum in hospital and her Dad fighting with the fear for her life, Izzy's fear conceptualizes as the Colour Thief who steals the colours in her mums murals one by one.
Luckily she meets a boy in a wheelchair, and together they get engrossed in saving a weak cygnet from its siblings.
This book is brilliant for every empathic 10+ year old.

I read a book quite similar to this one this year, The Amazing Colour Of After. Like After, this deals with themes of birds, colour, growing up and loss, although in this book Izzy's mother hasn't passed away, she's in a coma. While this is a much shorter book, I did feel that this handled those themes better, and I connected to Izzy way more than I did Leigh in After. 

 I didn't like Izzy's family in this book. When Izzy's mum is in coma, her Dad shuts himself off leaving her overbearing aunt to look after Izzy. I went through similar myself and it feels like instead of losing one person you've lost your whole family. I think her aunt meant well enough but treating the house as if it was hers and nit-picking didn't help the situation. 

 “I felt a cold rush of air. The shadow and smoke cleared and I was lifted in a single jerking motion by a pair of string hands. I could clearly see the skin - soft, leathery brown. I knew who the hands belonged to. The shadow man. The color thief.” 

When you grow up, your friendships change and Izzy loses her best friend around the same time as the accident. Lou clearly wants to be part of the popular crowd - and she doesn't think Izzy is cool enough. She quickly turns into a bully, making Izzy's life complete hell at school. 

On the plus side, Izzy meets a new friend Toby, who uses a wheelchair after an accident. He excitedly shows her the new baby swans he found when they spot a smaller cygnet who seems to be struggling against it's bigger brothers and sisters, so they work out a plan to build him up to be bigger and stronger. It's a clever use of mirroring against Izzy's own life.

The book was quite fun to read. The author is good at writing and the book was good; liked the characters too.

Izzy felt the only place she could be happy was with her best friend Lou – but when she suddenly shunned her, preferring the company of someone else, Izzy was shattered. The nightmares woke her every night – the shadowy man who took a different colour, one after the other, leaving her distraught and filled with guilt.

Izzy’s mother was in a coma in hospital; her dad was worried and unhappy, a shadow of his old self, and Izzy was consumed by feelings that a twelve-year-old shouldn’t have to feel. The day she met her new next door neighbour, Toby, who was wheelchair bound, her life started to change. They went to the nearby creek where they found a swan and her baby cygnets – one was struggling; a little smaller than the rest. Toby named him Spike and together Izzy and Toby worked out a way to feed him and keep him safe. They made unlikely friends – Izzy, Toby and Milo, Izzy’s devoted and playful puppy.

But what of the colour thief? Izzy knew the colour was going from her life; she just didn’t know how to stop it. Would Toby be her saviour? Could he work out how to help Izzy regain her life and her equilibrium?

The Mystery of the Colour Thief is a wonderful story of grief, guilt and overcoming fears by author Ewa Jozefkowicz; of compassion, friendship and love. I flew through the pages, finishing in a couple of hours – a young adult novel about the realities of life and how to combat some of the harshness in a positive manner. The Mystery of the Colour Thief is my first by this author, and won’t be my last. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for my digital ARC to read and review..