City of Thieves

City of Thieves

• Genre: Fiction; historical suspense
• Originally Published: 2008
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: 27 chapters; 258 pages; approx. 8 hours, 28 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: During the siege of Leningrad in 1942, 17-year-old Lev Beniov is arrested when he is caught looting the goods from a dead parachutist. He assumes he will be executed, but instead, a Soviet colonel offers Lev and newly-met cellmate Kolya, an outspoken deserter, a chance at freedom if they can procure an impossible-to-find luxury in the starved city: a dozen eggs for the cake for the colonel’s daughter’s wedding.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Wartime violence; antisemitism; death; sexual exploitation; animal cruelty; profanity; cannibalism

David Benioff (David Friedman), Author

• Bio: American writer, screenwriter, and producer; born in 1970 in New York City and raised in Manhattan; attended Dartmouth College, Trinity College in Dublin, and University of California at Irvine, where he earned an MFA in creative writing; worked on screenplays for Troy (2004) and The Kite Runner (2007) among other films; co-creator of Game of Thrones (2011-2019; television series based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series)
• Other Works: The 25th Hour (2001); When the Nines Roll Over (And Other Stories) (2004)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• The Transition From Boy to Man
• War and Survival

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the cultural and historical context of the Siege of Leningrad and accompanying conditions that incite Lev’s conflict.
• Analyze paired texts and other resources to make connections via the text’s themes of The Transition From Boy to Man and War and Survival.
• Write a newspaper article for the Red Star in the persona of Lev, using text details.

Analyze and evaluate the author’s purpose and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding Lev’s coming-of-age, Vika’s relationship with Lev, and other topics.