The Book Thief is perched on the cusp between grown-up and young-adult fiction, and it is loaded with librarian appeal ... Mr. Zusak's narrator offers constant manipulative asides, as in the clever Lemony Snicket books, although in this case wit is not much of an option. The narrator is Death ... While it is set in Germany during World War II and is not immune to bloodshed, most of this story is figurative: it unfolds as symbolic or metaphorical abstraction. The dominoes lined up on its cover are compared to falling bodies ... a long, winding tale, punctuated by Death's commentary ... It will be widely read and admired because it tells a story in which books become treasures.
The narrator of The Book Thief is many things — sardonic, wry, darkly humorous, compassionate — but not especially proud ... book's length, subject matter and approach might give early teen readers pause, but those who can get beyond the rather confusing first pages will find an absorbing and searing narrative ... Death meets the book thief, a 9-year-old girl named Liesel Meminger, when he comes to take her little brother, and she becomes an enduring force in his life, despite his efforts to resist her ... Death recounts all this mostly dispassionately — you can tell he almost hates to be involved. His language is spare but evocative, and he's fond of emphasizing points with bold type and centered pronouncements, just to make sure you get them.
The Australian writer Markus Zusak's brilliant and hugely ambitious new young-adult novel is startling in many ways...a long, achingly sad, intricately structured book about Nazi Germany narrated by Death itself ... this book isn't about Death; it's about death, and so much else ... Liesel is a very well-drawn character (and immensely likable), but many young readers will find the going slow until Max Vandenburg, a 24-year-old Jewish boxer, shows up at the family doorstep ... In The Book Thief, where battling to survive is sometimes an act of weakness, we see fighting in all its complexity ...it's the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, The Book Thief offers us a believable, hard-won hope.
It's a 552-page story about the Holocaust, written from the point of view of Death ... In The Book Thief, Death is the narrator, but a young girl — a book thief — is the central character ... As the story builds, Zusak deftly ties in historical bits to the narrative. Using the omnipresent voice of Death allows him to skip around in time and space ... Zusak's writing is at times marred by some postmodern tricks — inserting asides in boldface, some cloying commentary by Death — but, overall, his style is lyrical and moving ... Zusak has done a useful thing by hanging the story on the experience of a German civilian, not a camp survivor, and humanizing the choices that ordinary people had to make in the face of the Führer. It's unlikely young readers will forget what this atrocity looked like through the eyes of Death.
In The Book Thief, the man hiding a Jew named Max Vandenburg is decorator and part-time accordion player Hans Hubermann ... The growing relationships between Hubermann and Liesel and, later, Liesel and Max Vandenburg are central to the plot ... gives a unique and compassionate voice to a narrator who can comment on human's inhumanity to human without being ponderous, "worthy" or even quite understanding us at times ... meet all shades of German, from truly committed Nazis to the likes of Hans Hubermann. Zusak is no apologist, but able to give a remarkable insight into the human psyche ... Unsettling, thought-provoking, life-affirming, triumphant and tragic, this is a novel of breathtaking scope, masterfully told. It is an important piece of work, but also a wonderful page-turner.
This hefty volume is an achievement—a challenging book in both length and subject, and best suited to sophisticated older readers ... works in miniature, focusing on the lives of ordinary Germans in a small town outside Munich ... This "small story," as Death calls it, threads together gem-like scenes of the fates of families in this tight community ... Zusak's playfulness with language leavens the horror and makes the theme even more resonant—words can save your life ... As a storyteller, Death has a bad habit of forecasting ... a measure of how successfully Zusak has humanized these characters that even though we know they are doomed, it's no less devastating when Death finally reaches them.
How could the human race be “so ugly and so glorious” at the same time? This big, expansive novel is a leisurely working out of fate, of seemingly chance encounters and events that ultimately touch, like dominoes as they collide. The writing is elegant, philosophical and moving. Even at its length, it’s a work to read slowly and savor. Beautiful and important.
