Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Dorothy’s Thoughts:
I never anticipated laughing out loud at a book set in Germany smack-dab in the midst of WWII. I also never thought that I would think of Death as a sympathetic narrator, with a penchant for beautiful sunsets, but this book challenged quite a bit of my preconceived notions. The Book Thief follows a brief span of years as lived by a young girl by the name of Liesel, who is sent by her birth mother to live with a foster family, in order to save the girl from her mother’s association with communism.
The characters in the book alone are enough to recommend it, and are depicted in such a way that the reader feels a comfortable familiarity within the space of a few chapters. Even Death, the no-nonsense narrator shows a much softer side that what one might assume. That being said, the fact that the narrator of the story is Death ought to give you a warning to the fact that this is not a story of wine and roses. Written in an extremely conversational style –complete with interjections- The Book Thief is stylistically a very easy read. Emotionally, however, the book is anything but smooth sailing.
Of the characters whom we have the pleasures of meeting, my favorites are those who are central to the story: Rudy, Liesel’s next door neighbor and best friend is of epic proportions. Rudy is best known throughout their small village for “the Jesse Owens incident”, in which the young German boy, in homage to the great Olympian of 1933, paints himself in charcoal from his blond hair to his toes and reenacts the track star’s race in the village field. He’s brought firmly home by his darkened ear by his mystified father. Rudy is a continual source strength, encouragement and humor to Leisel throughout the novel, and lives for the day when he will finally earn her kiss.
Her foster family consists of her uber-foulmouthed foster mother, Rosa, and the endearing Hans Hubbermann who excels in nothing so well as in understanding Liesel. Rosa possesses an iron will, and an exquisitely offensive turn of phrase, which more often than not expresses loving over loathing.
The Book Thief is fantastically original in its writing, achingly beautiful in its truth, and infinitely uplifting.
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