The Book Thief Stole My Heart

By Katelyn P.

Published in 2005, Markus Zusak's novel "The Book Thief" is a story of a young orphan girl named Liesel who meets her new foster parents Hans and Rosa.  The narrator of the book is Death, and it takes place in Munich, Germany where Death is getting exceedingly busy.

Soon after Liesel's arrives Han's finds out that she doesn't know how to read so he tells her "well, we'd better read it,then." (Zusak,64) In the basement of the house is where they write down new words that they don't know on a chalkboard. While she is reading with Hans she is also going to school to learn about other subjects with her friend Rudy. At school she gets teased some times about not being able to read so much. Finally Leisel gets frustrated with being teased and so she gets into a fistfight with the bully.

Now that she can read and write she won't stop and she is fascinated with all books. This is all happening during WWII with them barely making it by, it's getting harder to be safe. Out of the blue a Jewish boy named Max shows up. The boy's father once saved Hans' life and for that he must try to protect him from the Nazi's.

Hans and his family are protecting Max while he tries to recover from a great sickness so they nurture him by feeding him soup and supplying him a bed in the basement of the house. While Max is secretly hiding there from the Nazi's Rosa is making sure every day that Leisel doesn't say a word about Max to Rudy or anyone.

In conclusion I believe Death was trying to teach us about some different things like how in the end all the people will die one day or another so we should try to uses them. Also I think he was trying to teach us courage about being brave and going to fight in the war because they were forced to. I think this story was well written and is very interesting that it was in Death's point of view. My favorite part about the book was when Liesel and Rudy had a race to see who could run the fastest because  Rudy thinks he is the fastest man on earth and Liesel gave him a look of disagreement so he challenged her to a race to see who was the fastest. I would definitely recommend the book if you like historical fiction or even just a great book in particular. 

The Book  Thief, by Markus Zusak, March 2005 ,550 pages