The Book Thief
[ 2006-03-27 10:31 ]
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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
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Death is the narrator of this lengthy, powerful story of a town in Nazi
Germany. He is a kindly, caring Death, overwhelmed by the souls he has to
collect from people in the gas chambers, from soldiers on the
battlefields, and from civilians killed in bombings. Death focuses on a
young orphan, Liesl; her loving foster parents; the Jewish fugitive 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 enthralled. 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 enthralling I Am
the Messenger (2004), the astonishing characters, drawn without
sentimentality, will grab readers. More than the overt message about the
power of words, it's Liesl's confrontation with horrifying 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,
acerbic Rosa Hubermann and her kindhearted spouse Hans, who owes a Jew his
life.
Hans helps Liesel cope with her nightmares and teaches his ward 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 misery caused by fellow humans. If the Nazis 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 apparition recognizes
that his best suppliers of goods are people who in spite of their Golden
Rule ramble 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.
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