THE BOOK THIEF

review by

Larry Shallenberger

THE BOOK THIEF

by Markus Zusak

(Knopf)

Reader Appeal: Teen to Adult

Genre: Fiction

The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a nine-year-old illiterate girl who loses her family during World War II. Liesel’s story is one of struggle, friendship, love, and courage. However, it’s her biographer that makes the story unique. The Book Thief is narrated by Death himself.

Death is an uneasy narrator. He's a skittish personality who fears humans, perhaps as much as humans fear him. Death is an unlikely sympathetic character because he doesn’t relish his work. He laughs at the human notion that he wears a cloak and carries a scythe. Instead, Death is an overworked laborer driven by a cruel boss—War. Throughout the story, Death interjects sparse nuggets of helpful information for the reader. He seems to be uneasy with his reading audience as much as he is with his characters.

In spite of his reluctance to get involved with humans, Death finds himself drawn into Liesel’s story. The Nazi’s imprisoned her father for being a communist and her mother gave her to foster parents before the Nazi’s came for her as well. Liesel thus finds herself in the care of a rough but not unkind family, the Hubermans.

It’s at the Hubermans that Liesel learns to read and discover the power of words. Hans Huberman becomes a grandfather figure to her and gives her 2 AM reading lessons when Liesel awakes from her nightly nightmares. Rosa is a gruff, cursing matron who eventually reveals a softer side. Liesel also meets some wonderful characters from around the neighborhood. There’s Rudy, a young sprinter and fellow thief, who idolizes Jesse Owens. Rudy’s obsession with the African-American sprinter doesn’t win him favor with the Nazi Youth Party, but he is undeterred.  There’s also Max, a young Jew whom the Hubermans hide in their basement. Liesel makes fast friends with each of these youthful men and learns lessons about loyalty, friendship, and love.

In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak captures Liesel’s childlike perspective showing that she is somehow able to hold onto while living on Himmel (Heaven) Street - until Allied bombers bring the weight of the war and death to her neighborhood. Zusak is generous with humor and tales of the heroes' thieving mischief. These elements keep the atrocities of Nazi Germany from overwhelming the reader.

The Book Thief ultimately is the story about the power of words. Words provide Liesel escape from her nightmares. Her relationship with Max centers on storytelling. Liesel also comes to the terrible realization that Hitler’s Third Reich wasn’t built with tanks, but first with words. Teen readers will leave this book with an acute understanding of the power of ideas.

It’s hard to find flaws with the Book Thief. The book is dark and tragic. A story involving Nazi oppression narrated by Death seems like a hard sell to the average teen. However, Zusak writes about Liesel’s exploits with a gentleness that softens the weight of the book. Parents might want to be aware that there a few curse words sprinkled in over the course of 550 pages. This reviewer doesn’t see them as a reason to keep a mature teen from being exposed to the powerful message of the book.   

FAMILYFANS RATING: B+

--LS