The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak
Genre: Young Adult – Historical Fiction
Publication Date: March 14th 2006
Publisher:  Knopf Books for Young Readers
Age Range: 12+
Pages:  550
Date Scoot Read: April 2011
Source: Audiobook

Scoot's Rating: 10 – Amazing! Loved it. Read it now!

Synopsis (via Goodreads): It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak's groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she discovers something she can't resist- books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found.

With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

Scoot’s Review:
Can I just say that I loved and hated this book simultaneously.  I loved it because of the compelling story, inspiring ideas and deep feelings it shared.  I feel this is one of those books that everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.  It was beautiful, heartrending, and haunting. Yet, I hated it because I vaguely knew what was going to happen in the storyline and I was dreading events as I became more deeply involved in the novel.  Talk about dragging out the heartache!  Crying in the car on your commute home from work is not a pretty thing.  The entire story was told in colorful vignettes of life of a young girl named Liesel (aka – The Book Thief).  The story’s narrator was Death.  Yes, Death himself was telling the tale and it was not always in succession. Death would hop around telling pieces of the tale in the order he felt it needed to be told. The writing style itself was more descriptively excessive than I normally prefer; for instance, rather than a color being stated to describe something it would be compared to an object, like “hair the color of lemons.” However, after taking some time to adjust to the style I loved it and I can’t imagine it being told any other way.  It still makes me tear up just thinking about it.  When I see Liesel’s story in my mind I picture it in all of the descriptive imaging it was told it. Character building was perfect, you easily connected to the characters in the novel and quickly became very attached to them.  Needless to say this is a book that should be read, or listened to at least one time by everyone.  A brilliant and heartbreaking tale.  Kudos to the author, it was lovely.