WARNING! Do not read if you don’t want the book to be spoiled!! The Book Thief is a book written by Markus Zusak, it was published in 2005. It is about a little girl who was sent away to another family, living through the Holocaust, hiding secrets, and books are the way she survives.
The main character, Liesel Meminger, couldn’t read or write when she went to this family, although she was very interested in learning. Her foster father, Hans Huberman is a very sweet accordionist, who helped Leisle with her writing, reading, and playing the accordion! Although her foster mother, Rosa Huberman irons and washes wealthy people’s clothing, she isn’t very kind to Liesel, but does secretly care about her. Liesel’s best friend, Rudy Steiner is a neighbor and is very obsessed with Jesse Owens. The narrator is death, literally. As if death were written as person, symbolizing that wherever Liesel went death followed. Liesel originally had a brother, but he died on the train to Germany. Their biological mom was forced to a concentration camp and died later, sadly she and Liesel had no contact.
The war gets worse and worse, a Jewish person who is friends with her foster dad, arrives at the door seeking shelter from the Nazis, her kind foster father says yes, and they have to keep him a secret, and have to be very careful. Otherwise, they may end up dead. The Jewish man and Liesel get very close and form a bond, he later leaves because he doesn’t want to put this family in danger but gets caught by the Nazis. He was very lucky because he survived and reunited with Liesel at the end.
Liesel learns to read and write and gets very interested, spending hours in her basement just writing away, one night she was writing when the alarm went off, the alarm signaling that a bomb was coming, since she was in the basement she couldn’t hear, so she didn’t do anything. Later people who clean up bombed sites, find her and she realizes that both of her foster parents died. She was extremely sad, but she gathered her stuff including the accordion and began walking the street she grew up remembering every little detail.
In my personal opinion, the book is very poetic and shows a side of the holocaust and how they risked their lives for Jewish people even though they weren’t Jewish. This book would be great for people who would like to learn more about the Holocaust, or if you like sad, mysterious, and action-packed books. It really tells a story about how horrifying the Holocaust was. This book is a true masterpiece!!
