The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.  978-0-375-84220-7; paperback; $12.99.

Annotation:
Liesel has just lost everything: her father, her mother, her little brother, and she's about to lose a whole lot more.

Book Review:

It’s the early days of World War II and just outside of Munich, Germany Liesel Meminger wakes up on a train to find her brother dead.  Her sickly, communist mother leaves her in the care of Hans and Rosa Hubermann, in a foster home on Himmel Street, and never sees her again.  Death, The Book Thief’s omniscient narrator, is watching.  This wise-cracking, smooth-talking Death appears outwardly unflappable but is beginning to inwardly fall apart.  His work is overwhelming; there are so many souls that need transporting and so many desperate survivors he has to stare in the face.  He can’t take a vacation: Death’s one of a kind.  But there is something special about Liesel, our illiterate, earnest protagonist that catches Death’s attention, when she steals a book from her brother’s grave site and sets about to learning how to read it.  Along the way she makes friends with a fist-fighting Jew, a scrappy athlete named Rudy, a haunted mayor’s wife, and her beloved foster father, Hans.  Amid abject poverty, starvation, bombings, Hitler Youth meetings, school and bullying Liesel continues to comfort herself with stolen words, and begins to write a few of her own.  Her obsession with literature becomes her saving grace from the sorrow and confusion of war.  And in the end, it touches upon the lives of her neighbors, loved ones, and enemies.  Even her biggest enemy of all, Death himself.

Weighing in at over 550 pages with a drab brown cover, The Book Thief is not going to appeal to the reluctant reader, though you may enjoy the movie directed by Brian Percival or The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman instead.  Unlike John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Zusak’s Book Thief never feels patronizing or didactic.  The book’s true magnificence is in its ability to capture so many points of view without making obvious judgments about any of them.  The storyline runs wide enough to encompass repentant Germans, guilt-ridden Jews, diabolical Nazis, abusive but loving parents and impulsive children.  And, of course, Death, who is far more human than we may find comfortable.  Recommended for ages 13 and up due to mature subject matter.

Available in paperback, hardcover, large print, e-book, braille book, audio CD.  They also made it into a movie:

Awards won in 2006: 

Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (South East Asia & South Pacific), School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Daniel Elliott Peace Award, Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of the Year; Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book.

Awards won in 2007: 

Michael L. Printz Award, Book Sense Book of the Year, Notable Book for a Global Society, Sydney Taylor Award, Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People.