The Book Thief
SynopsisPlot
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
Story
About this book
The Book Thief is set in Nazi Germany beginning in 1939 and follows Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living in a small town outside Munich. After arriving at her new home, Liesel begins to steal books, drawn to them even before she can read. Her foster father, an accordion player, teaches her to read using the books she collects. As Allied bombing raids intensify, Liesel shares the stories she has gathered with neighbors sheltering in basements. The household also harbors a Jewish man in hiding, and the danger of that secret runs through the novel.
One of the book's most distinctive choices is its narrator: the story is told by Death, who observes human behavior during wartime with a tone that is at times weary, at times puzzled. This framing allows the novel to move between close domestic detail and a wider view of destruction across Europe. Australian author Markus Zusak, who also wrote I Am the Messenger, published The Book Thief in 2005. The novel centers on the power that words and stories hold for people living under extreme restriction, where owning or sharing the wrong book carries real consequences.
