This book is a classic . Overall RecommendationEverybody needs to read this book
How rewarding is the story?
SummaryGerman, Liesel Meminger is left with foster parents Rosa and Hans Hubermann in a town called Molching on a cold winter night; her brother is dead, having died on the train, and her mother, unable to feed and care for her children anymore, is gone.Liesel settles in with the Hubermanns, grows accustomed to Rosa's sharp tongue and Hans' gentleness and understanding and discovers a best friend, Rudy Steiner.  Life in Hitler's Germany is tough even for non-Jewish Germans...their food is rationed, there are no extras of anything, there are strict rules to follow and family members may be taken away at any time to serve Hitler in whatever way he so chooses.The families do everything possible to keep life as normal as possible.Hans begins to read with Liesel each night when she wakens from her nightmares, first from A Gravediggers Handbook that Liesel, "The Book Thief," recovered after it was lost in the snow by an apprentice gravedigger at her brother's burial and then from books Liesel steals from the mayor's wife's library.  She later continues her reading and writing lessons in the basement with a Jew named Max (the son of an old friend of Hans) who shows up one night needing help.Life gets tougher on Himmel Street; the war begins spiraling out of control, Jews are marched down the street of Molching on their way to concentration camps, air raid sirens become part of normal life, Rosa loses many of her washing jobs bc of prejudice, and the family is frightened for their lives 24/7 if Max is found in their basement.Is it even possible for this story to have a happy ending?Should it?What I LikedDeath, the narrator - foreshadowing - I could almost hear music...you know the kind that comes on while you're watching a scary movie...the killer is around the corner...if only the heroine could hear the music, right??  That's when everybody starts screaming, "Don't you go in there, Girl!! Just don't do it!"  Even when you've seen the movie before, you still hope that she won't go in there...that's how this story felt to me.I knew how it would end.  We all do.Liesel - in the past when someone mentioned the name Liesel, I would think of the older sister in "The Sound of Music"...that won't happen anymore.  This Liesel is unforgettable.  Her strength, her soul, her ability to adjust to her surroundings, her ability to pick up and keep moving, her ability to love, her ability to see the world around her realistically...all of that and more...nevermind the fact that this child is only 9-13 years old throughout the story.Format - I'm sure there's a word for this type of structure, but I don't  know what it is...The narrator, Death, goes back and forth in time as he pleases and interrupts the flow with comments and/or bolded newsflashes of sort.  I would think the danger of this kind of format would be a chopped up feel, but there is none of that here.  Quite the contrary, the most effective flashes and context seem to be incorporated seamlessly this way.Death complaining about having too much on his plate - Most of us see Death as that hooded creature with the scythe...it's a Hollywood version that's become ingrained in our brains.  But, Death as the storyteller in The Book Thief doesn't seem to be a frightening thing at all...the way he gently scoops the victims up in his arms and takes them away, the way Death truly mourns over the lives of worthy humans, the way Death sees all that's happening in the world as a waste, but not something he can stop almost endears him to the reader.  I could go on and on about the symbolism here...how mankind hurts itself over and over, etc. but I'll let you experience that for yourself.The humor - both Death's sarcastic remarks and Liesel and Rudy's attempts to carry on conversations with adult words tickled me from time to time.  I appreciated the ability to have a rest every now and then from subject matter that weighed so heavily on my chest.  The German curse words were my favorites :)The History - once again there are things here that I never even knew about...scores of Jews escaped Germany while they were able and ended up in Australia...hence, Zusak's (an Australian) interest in the Jewish families who survived and the members/branches of those families who were left behind and essentially wiped off the face of the earth.Hans Hubermann - how the heck do you not like a man like Hans?What I Didn't LikeThere is literally nothing about this novel that I didn't like, except of course, the subject matter.  How in the world this part of our history exists completely baffles me.  And, then sometimes it doesn't; I can look around at the world we live in today and see some of the same mindset that guided the worst genocide in our nation's history, and I get scared.  Really.Hitler was one man.One of the statistics Death brings out in this novel is that at one point in history 90% of Germans backed Hitler.90%.Out of every 100 people, 90 of them believed what Hiltler proposed was right and/or believed that his strategies/actions had to happen in order to create a powerful German human race.Even as I type those words, it seems so stupid...like something we'd all snicker at and say the person needs psychiatric help.But, time and time again, things happen that we think never would.How did this happen?90%.It's called blind conformity.It's a disease, and...This book is a classic.Overall RecommendationEverybody needs to read this book.The End. 