The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak 

List Price: $16.95

Pages: 560

Publisher:  Knopf Books for Young Readers (March 14, 2006)

Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.0 x 1.6 inches

ISBN: 0375831002   

Death is the narrator of this lengthy¹, powerful story of a town in Nazi² Germany. He is a kindly³, caring Death, overwhelmed by the souls he has to collect from people in the gas chambers⁴, from soldiers on the battlefields, and from civilians⁵ killed in bombings. Death focuses on a young orphan⁶, Liesl; her loving foster parents; the Jewish fugitive⁷ they are hiding; and a wild but gentle teen neighbor, Rudy, who defies the Hitler Youth and convinces Liesl to steal for fun. After Liesl learns to read, she steals books from everywhere. When she reads a book in the bomb shelter, even a Nazi woman is enthralled⁸. Then the book thief writes her own story. There's too much commentary at the outset, and too much switching from past to present time, but as in Zusak's enthralling⁹ I Am the Messenger (2004), the astonishing characters, drawn¹⁰ without sentimentality, will grab readers. More than the overt¹¹ message about the power of words, it's Liesl's confrontation¹² with horrifying¹³ cruelty and her discovery of kindness in unexpected places that tell the heartbreaking truth.

Book review

During World War II near Munich, Germany, nine years old Liesel Meminger finds a tome The Gravedigger's Handbook while attending her younger brother's funeral. Unable to resist she takes the book with her. However, she is unable to read the book until fate steps in. Her father is missing and her mother cannot afford her upkeep so she gives Liesel in care to foster parents, acerbic¹⁴ Rosa Hubermann and her kindhearted spouse¹⁵ Hans, who owes a Jew his life.

Hans helps Liesel cope with her nightmares and teaches his ward¹⁶ to read. His chance to pay the war debt to the Jewish soldier who saved his life finally occurs when the man's son, the artist Max, arrives at his house seeking shelter. As Max paints over pages of the Mein Kampf, Leisel steals books from Nazi burnings and begins to write about living at a time of misery¹⁷ caused by fellow humans. If the Nazis¹⁸ catch either one, Death will be a welcome guest.

This is a complex book in which the narrator Death tells the tale of Liesel and Max. Interestingly Death is a cynic when it comes to human behavior especially kindness towards others; the apparition¹⁹ recognizes that his best suppliers of goods are people who in spite of their Golden Rule ramble²⁰ contain homicidal tendencies rationalized by an ism of some sort. The fascinating asides to the readers are brilliant as they enable the audience to understand the cast he looks upon adding to his collection, but especially Death itself. Give yourself plenty of time, over a week or more, as Markus Zusak has written one of the most haunting tales of the human condition in several years.