The Book Thief

The Book Thief

            A particular story, The Book Thief written by Markus Zusack is set in Nazi Germany and is told from the perspective of death who has a secret fascination with a little girl named Liesel. It begins in a small town right outside Munich where Death chronicles the life of many but focuses on the life of a peculiar little girl. An interesting approach at storytelling, Zusack does an fantastic job at telling the story from this particularly different point of view. The Book Thief starts with on a train looking in at a young and frightened girl who has a mother and a brother. On their way to live with foster parents, Liesel arrives at her new parents home with a brother who has passed away and never hearing from her mother again. On her way to her new family, her brother is buried and in shock of his death Liesel takes her first book, it is in fact a book on how to properly bury the dead. Throughout the story, Liesel’s book thievery is used in many ways to comfort her even though she knows she can barely read. In a world where death surrounds her and she must salute a dark power she doesn’t believe in, her books become her friends. It was a source of comfort, a piece of her brother that she would always have. Throughout the story, Liesel comes across many friends like Rudy and the Jew that is hiding in the basement of her foster parents home but through time the stories, the ones she kept and the one should write remain an important part of how she overcame so many hardships.

            This book received The Michael Printz Award and has been nominated for several others and remains to be a national best seller as well as recently being adapted for the big screen. Like most awards, the criteria is simply looking for literary excellence. Zusacks does an incredible job at painting an extremely visual story through his profound text in The Book Thief and is definitely a story that readers can remember in great detail. The profound use of death as the voice and narrator is an excellent source at grabbing the attention of the reader and the characters he creates are truly unforgettable. I think one of the reasons why this novel is so engaging, beloved and unforgettable is because it deals with a child’s experience during war time and her trying to make sense of the world and her place in it especially as an orphan living with parents who are not her birth parents. Although Liesel grows to love her foster parents and the friends she makes throughout her life, it’s really about her growing into a woman during an incredibly dark period in her own life and around her in a Nazi occupied village when she despises what Nazism stands for.    

(images via pinterest)