BOOK REVIEW

This book is a must read. As one reviewer put it, ‘I’m a 54 year old who has not been a teen for 35 years. This is an incredible read’.

THE BOOK THIEF
by Markus Zusak, reviewed by Gloria Novak.

The book is a real tour de force. Its success is the combination of sympathetic characters, a web of simple stories and a masterful use of vocabulary.

This book may be written for the Young Adult crowd but trust me, the vast majority of adults will love this book. Yes, the story is one we have read before - coming of age during WWII, hiding a Jew in the basement, petty thieving among adolescents - but the writing and the consistently clever way with words is fantastic.

Death is the narrator and is working overtime now that the war is in full swing, and every once in a while, he/she has to stop and look around as an antidote for the pain of his job. Liesel Meminger provides some of that respite.

On her way to a foster home to live with Rosa and Hans Hubermann he sees her steal a book. There she painstakingly learns to read and begins her love affair with words.

Death uses words and the placement of those words on the page to paint pictures for the reader that, while about the horror of the war, are evocative but don't get to the point where the book is distasteful. Intense, but still beautiful writing.

You want to keep reading to hear the words in your head; to see what Liesel does or thinks next, to hear Hans and Rosa together, to keep anticipating a kiss between Liesel and Rudy, to see whether Max Vanddenburg (the Jew hiding in the basement) is caught, to read Max's book for Liesel and to wonder at the private pain of the mayor's wife as she silently listens to Liesel read.

These words of mine do not do this book justice. Read it for yourself and then try to describe it - I dare you.