The Book Thief
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME • A NEW YORK TIMES READER TOP 100 PICK FOR BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK OF THE CENTURY
The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.
When Death has a story to tell, you listen.
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.
In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.
“The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times
“Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today
DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.
The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.
When Death has a story to tell, you listen.
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.
In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.
“The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times
“Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today
DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.
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Community Reviews
I read this a while back after author Libba Bray recommended it on her blog. I gave it a try, and I won't lie, it took a while to get into. It's a heavy (literally), long book. But once I got into it, I was hooked! I felt so connected the the characters. The story was interesting, with sparks of hope among a rather miserable backdrop of the second world war in Germany. In the end I cried and felt so much for the characters and this story. I was intrigued by the details.
What a brilliant and creatively written and curated story...you will laugh, you will cry, you will cheer and you will be heartbroken but you will feel immensely grateful that you spent your reading time with these characters and this story...
For me, this story is a collection of the joyful and hopeful moments that could be experienced/collected during WWII, as well as the daily hardships, snippets of despair, outbursts of anguish, fear, and tragedy felt by a small/rural German community as well as the characters' displays of triumphs, defiance, resilience, kindness and bravery that are both admirable and bewildering to the book's narrator - death
The story's central characters - Liesel, Rudy, Rosa and Hans Hubberman and Max are now beloved to me and will be added to the kindle that warms my bookish heart...
The scene of a German boy handing a fallen Allied soldier a teddy bear as he takes his last breaths beautifully is hauntingly etched in my mind and summarizes what makes this book so powerful... holding onto our humanity in some of history's darkest hours...
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