Title: The Book ThiefAuthor: Markus Zusak
Publication date: 2005
Number of pages: 550
Genre: Young Adult historical fiction
Geographical setting: Nazi Germany, town of Molching
Time period: WWII
Series: N/A
Plot Summary: Liesel is a young orphan sent to live with her foster parents in a small town in Nazi Germany. Death (or if you would like to call him, the Grim Reaper) recounts her story and the lives of those around her, including the young Jewish man hiding in her basement. Her stolen books and the words she learns to fill her stories become some of the few salvations in her life on Himmel Street.
Subject Headings: Germany, Jews, World War II, Holocaust, survival, war, Death, orphans, foster families
Appeal: allows readers to see a different side of this time in history as the story of the Holocaust period is told from the lives of Germans, everyday people trying to hide Jewish friends, resisting the Nazis as much as they could and still be safe and live their lives; the rifts between father and son when ideologies clash; Liesel’s parents are not examined too much but enough to know that they were at least branded communists and one may assume her parents did not fare well under Hitler; creative use of illustrations; Death, as the narrator, is at times poetic and lyrical in his descriptions and saddening in his exhaustion of his taking of souls during the war; love of adoptive and foster parents for children they take care of; book thievery of Liesel and her love of words as a stark contrast to the censorship, banning and control by the Nazis over books and words.
