the book thief

Along comes The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, and the voice of Liesel Meminger will be with me for a long while. Published in 2006 by a young Australian author, this book is narrated by Death in Nazi Germany. Liesel, the main protagonist, discovers her penchant for stealing books after her first accomplishment, pocketing a copy of The Grave Digger's Handbook that fell from the pocket of one of the men who dug her young brother's grave while they were en route by train to a foster family outside Munich in 1939. (Her mother, a Communist, is likely traveling on to Dachau.)

The importance of words and books grows throughout the story, amidst memorable characters, the chaos and atrocity of the war, and in symbolizing love and courage.

From the book jacket: "Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she discovers something she can't resist -- books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be found. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Liesel 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."

This is not a quick read. It was a bit tough to break into the narration. Not only is it more than 550 pages, the story zig zags through time periods and points of view, and breaks the heart into little pieces along the way. I had to pause every so often when I couldn't take any more. Who can resist this description of the book by its own narrator? "It's just a small story really, about, among other things:
* A girl
* Some words
* An accordionist
* Some fanatical Germans
* A Jewish fist fighter
* And quite a lot of thievery" (p. 5)

Why does Death tell this story? Distraction helps him cope with his eternal duty. At the end of the story, Liesel asks Death if he had read the autobiography she had written. As he reflects on the many times he had read and re-told the story to himself, he muses, "I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race -- that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant."

This book was originally intended for an older adult audience in its native Australia. It has been marketed in the U.S. as a young adult novel, but it has gotten wide audience in book clubs around the country. Once you get past the first 15 pages, it is hard to put this one down. It is a powerful story, at times heart warming and at most others, heart wrenching -- bringing to light names and faces of people from that time and place. Books like this will help to be certain that we never forget the horrors of the Holocaust.