Good Read: “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Review by Shannon Siebert

At first glance “The Book Thief” looks like a novel you might want to skip–set in 1939 World War II Nazi Germany, the narrator is Death itself (kinda spooky?), illiterate nine-year old girl dropped off by mother to live with strangers who are to be her foster parents in Molching, Germany and of all things they take in a Jew to hide in their basement.  Sounds a little too familiar yet quirky and you might wonder what in the world does a book thief have to do with all of the above?

“The Book Thief” rates as one of my best reads this year.  Upon opening the book to its first page the reader knows right away that the writing style is definitely unconventional.  The book is freely interspersed with different fonts, bold print, sketches that do stretch your mind a bit as you weave through this intriguing story.  And curiously, Death itself serves as narrator brushing perilously close to Liesel on more than one occasion.

The horrors of the assault on the Jews and the ordinary German citizens by Hitler’s dreams is shown simply through the eyes of a little girl, Liesel Meminger, who is known as the book thief.  Her life is changed when her younger brother dies en-route to a foster home her mother was taking her too because she was unable to support Liesel anymore.  When they stop to bury him, her life is changed forever when at the graveside, she spots a book hidden in the snow.  She steals it and it becomes the first book she learns to read entitled, “The Grave Digger’s Handbook.”  Liesel falls in love with words, their meaning and develops a life-long thirst for more precious books which makes her the “book thief” as the story unfolds.

Her foster family turns out to be a couple who end up treating her very well.  Her foster father Hans Hubermann is a sometime painter/piano accordion player who stays up nights when Liesel has reoccurring nightmares of her brother’s death and lovingly teaches her to read.  Her foster mother, Rosa, seems harsh and verbally abusive towards Liesel but she sees through her foul language for what it really is–a sign of affection.  Rosa works hard taking in laundry from the wealthier families to make ends meet during the difficult wartimes.

They live on Himmel Street in Molching that is filled with other poor families trying to make the best of a complicated political, economical and war-torn world. As the war progresses and the bomb raids become more frequent it is Liesel who gives comfort to the neighbors who gather fearfully in the deepest basement on Himmel Street as she reads aloud.

Amidst the horrors of the war, Liesel finds plenty of other children like herself on Himmel Street who like to play street ball, ride bike and wander aimlessly.  But it is the ever hungry and bony looking Rudy Steiner who becomes her true friend accompanying her on more book stealing adventures.  Rudy is quite a character and has already been branded as the neighborhood kook after he was caught painted black running the mile at the local track emulating Jesse Owens.  Nevertheless, he and Liesel become quite a pair as they try to make sense of their upside down world.

Keeping secrets becomes a way of life for Liesel when of all things her family takes into hiding a desperate young and very sick Jewish man named Max Vandenburg whose father had befriended Hans during World War I and taught him to play the accordion.  Hiding a Jew is no small matter especially when the Hubermann’s married son is a strident Nazi who argues with his father who still has not joined the Nazi party himself.

It makes their daily life more complicated but Liesel’s friendship with Max becomes a story within a story in the book.  They both share nightmares and a love of the words, and pictures that make up their stories.  Before Max is forced to leave their household, he gives Liesel his gift of a homemade book of sketches and his own story ironically made from some torn out painted over pages from Hitler’s own “Mein Kampf.”

There is much more to this intriguing and well written novel but I won’t give away anymore in case you choose to read it except to say that Zusak does a brilliant job of showing how the value of words changed the world during this time in history.  It is no wonder that Markus Zusak won numerous awards for this book that is right up there with the likes of “The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank.  After reading this book, I found out that the author is a well-known writer of several young adult fiction books.  “The Book Thief” is one of those rare books that can be read and enjoyed by younger and older adults.