Thursday, March 27, 2008

The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Fiction/Literature


The Book Thief is a unique book in many ways. It is the story of an illiterate, poverty-stricken young German girl during WWII. The story is narrated by Death: not a callous, frightening Death but a caring over-worked Death. Leisel Meminger is the Book Thief. She steals her first book at her brother's funeral. Her foster father teaches her to read and therein fosters a love of books and words. Liesel steals books from Nazi Book burnings and the mayor's wife's library.

Leisel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement. Max opens up Liesel's world even further by writing books for her.

Zusak writes about the dangerous times of Nazi Germany. The concentration camps, the Nazi youth movement and the fervour of the times is depicted very well. Zusak develops the characters so well the readers can feel the emotion through the pages.

Another unique feature is the manner in which the chapters are written. They are vignettes of life.

I loved the book and the way it was written.


First Line: "First the colors."


Rating:

(4.5/5)

2 comments:

Jeane said...

It sounds like such a great book, I've read about it on several blogs now. The more reviews I read, the more I want to read the book itself!

Anonymous said...

I tried to read this book last year, but just couldn't get into it. I think I'll give it another try though, since everyone seems to love it!