The Book Thief- Markus Zusak

Title: The Book Thief
Author: Zusak, Markus
Publisher: Random House, 2007
ISBN-13:  9780375842207

Genre: Historical Fiction
Reading Level: 730 Lexile
Interest Level: 9+

Readers Annotation: Could books really change the world? What about books that are being burned?

Plot:
Liesel is a foster child. She is figuring out her new life in the middle of the German Nazi take over. She has created a habit of stealing. This helps the family with food and is something she does daily. One day, she steals a book and with the help of her step father, an accordion player, she learns to read. This opens her world drastically. When she begins to understand that reading opens people to knowledge, she begins to see why the books are being burned by the Nazis. Their family is hiding a Jewish man in their basement and Liesel shares the books she is stealing with him as well as her family. Will she thrive in such a sad time?

Review:
This book was powerful and shows the power of knowledge and literacy. Books on this subject have always been interesting to me but very hard to read. World War Two was a very ugly time for humanity and the torture to people was horrendous. This book takes a negative thing and spins it in a positive way giving the idea of knowledge to all kinds of people. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to those interested in learning about a different part of history. Zusak did a great job engaging the reader in the story with each page.

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