Read "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak!

Read this book.

No, seriously, I mean it. Read. This. Book.

I picked this book up when it was on the “Our staff recommends…” shelf with 5 staffers’ names on the description card. Only when I got it home, having devoured the first chapter on the way, did I realize that it was a Printz Award Honor book.

The Book Thief is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young girl living through the Holocaust, as narrated by Death. Yes, you read that right. Death here is not your hooded skeleton with a scythe lurking in the shadows, however; he wants a vacation from carrying souls, and it breaks his heart to see the living survivors he has to leave behind. It’s hard not to give away spoilers here, as Death only runs into Liesel when he is taking someone from her, and he does describe her as “an expert at being left behind.” I can tell you that Liesel is given to foster parents in a suburb of Munich at a very young age, not fully understanding until Hitler’s rise to power why her mother had to give her up. She tries to grow up as normally as possible, with a ravenous desire to learn despite her humble background, her current poverty, and the tumultuous political situation. Her home becomes a sanctuary for a young Jewish man, and she has to understand moral complexities very early in her life.

I don’t mind skimming over the plot points here in the attempt to avoid spoilers, because it is really the style and figurative language of the book that makes it so wonderful. In an interview, Markus Zusak talks about the multiple drafts it took to get this narrator right; Death is weary of his eternal job, worn down by the horrible things he sees in Nazi Germany. He sees the world with an unending framework, so metaphor weighs heavy on everything he sees. Color plays importantly into his view of the world, and it creates some beautiful images for the reader. This book’s central theme about the power of words and ideas, to manipulate in Hitler’s case and to overcome for Liesel, is an important one for teenagers, and one that has never been told so perfectly in a Holocaust novel. The prose of this book was stunning and touching, with a style entirely its own. Please do yourself and your students a favor by reading and assigning The Book Thief, wherever you can fit it and whatever means it takes.

Suggested grade level: 9^th-12^th grade

Appropriateness: violence/death, dark themes, length (500+ pages)