Why this Book? I found this book on my bookshelf – somewhere (used book table?) I had purchased this book. I was looking through books on my shelf for a novel to read between other books assigned in the various book clubs I’m in. I found this one, checked the reviews – they are excellent – and so started to read.

Summary in 4 Sentences: The Setting: A young girl in 1938 Germany is orphaned and given over to a foster home of a poor Germany family living in a village outside of Munich. Though 11 years old, she is illiterate, and now traumatized by the loss of her family and being delivered to strangers, she struggles to adapt to her new foster family, but her foster father is kind and offers to teach her how to read. The Story: Over the next several years, she manages to survive and adapt within the village, attends school, makes a few friends (other outcasts) while all around her, Hitler’s Third Reich and anti-Semitism increasingly reach into her village and her life, and though her family is not political, the oppressive Nazi climate affects them all. Finally: The war itself reaches into the village, people she knows and loves have to take tough decisions, and her strength of character is tested in ways neither she nor the reader would expect.

My Impressions: Wonderful book that deserves its many accolades. Great characters living during one of the main dramas of the 20th century, in a small German town, which could be a small town anywhere, except that this one is sitting at the edge of a world in crisis. The main character is Liesel Meminger and this story is her story – but it is told from the perspective of “Death” – a personification of a “being” who carries souls from their earthly body to the next (undefined) world. Death is telling the story in retrospect – he knows what will happen, and occasionally reveals that this character or that will die much too young, or that this would be the last time a person would see, hear or experience X. But mostly, Death is simply telling the story in a detached observant way, from time to time revealing a human-like sadness or regret. And the author also uses another different literary tool – Death will occasionally step in from outside the story’s narrative to provide additional background or other explanatory information indented in bold letters as an aside.

Liesel is a great character. She is a traumatized orphan turned over to authorities by a similarly traumatized mother. Liesel is delivered to her foster family, initially doesn’t fully understand what is going on, but is alert to what she needs to do to survive. She keeps her mouth shut. She keeps her pain to herself, and does what she’s told. Life has dealt her a very tough hand and she is intent on surviving – by staying as low profile as possible, by trying not to attract attention, to just survive. But she is very curious and desperately wants to learn to read. Early in the book, at her brother’s funeral, she had picked up a dropped copy of a gravediggers manual, which she holds on to as representing her lost brother, and desperately wants to read it. Her kind new foster father Hans Hubermann nurtures her through her nightmares at night, and teaches her to read. She loves to read – it provides her an escape from an indifferently hostile world. Her foster mother Rosa Hubermann is harsh, condescending and unsympathetic, and presses Liesel into service, helping with the laundry Rosa does for the more well-to-do families in the village to help pay the bills. Liesel adapts – does what she’s told, tries to stay out of trouble, keeps to herself while the political temperature in the small village continues to rise in response to the Nazi propaganda.

She makes friends with Rudy, a young boy her age who like her, is an outsider in school, something of a loner who marches to his own drummer. She and Rudy become fast friends, form something of a partnership in navigating the challenges of poor young people in the village. Liesel is a tom-boy and she and Rudy play soccer together, give each other a hard time, but all the while, Rudy is romantically interested in Liesel, regularly asking her for a kiss – which she refuses him.

The story digresses to foster-father Hans’s experiences in WW1 and how he owed his life to a comrade. This incident incurred a debt that that Hans had to his benefactor’s family, which resulted in Max, a Jew escaping the roundup of Jews for the concentration camps, showing up at the Hubermann’s home asking Hans to make good on his debt and protect him. This brings the cost of Nazi anti-Semitism home to Liesel and the Hubermanns, and the story takes a new twist.

In their effort to hide and protect Max while also protecting themselves from the Nazis for the crime of hiding Jews, the Hubermann family including Liesel is transformed. They adjust their lives to bring no attention to their household, to protect Max and share as much of their meager resources with him as they can. Max demands little and is most grateful, and the Hubermann’s – and esp Liesel – become quite attached to him.

At this point the War has begun, the German Army has occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia, has invaded France and Russia, is fighting on two fronts, and life becomes ever more difficult in their little town. Money and resources are scarce, people are hungry, the men are conscripted, though at this point Hans, a veteran of WW1 is too old. Liesel becomes ever more engaged in her reading, and one of the wealthy patrons of Rosa Hubermann’s laundry business had a library, and allows Liesel to spend time there when she comes to pick up or deliver laundry. This was the only contact Liesel had with the world of books. Eventually Liesel would break into the house and steal books – one at a time – thus she became “the Book Thief.”

As things get tougher in her village, Liesel is forced to rise to the challenges that emerge, stepping up to help adults who are struggling to handle the increasing pressure and hardship. We see her courage, and the courage and cowardice, strength and weakness of many who live in the village, struggling to adapt and survive, so close to Munich and the heartbeat of the Nazi regime.

One thing I noticed in reading the book was that most of the “bad” characters in the book, those we were inclined to dislike, eventually showed their humanity in one way or another. The war brought out the worst, and sometimes the better sides of their characters.

I loved this book – The Book Thief is a coming of age novel – a “bildungs roman” about how Liesel grows and develops from a scared young girl into a strong young woman by dealing with the adversity of life in a small German village during the war. It gets better and better, more and more engaging as one reads through the story. The voice and perspective of Death the narrator becomes engaged as “he” narrates this story, all the while being called upon to carry the millions of souls who are dying during this war, into the next world. It is a book I will not soon forget.