Nothing is left for Liesel, with her mother gone, her brother dead, and her home left far behind. Or so she thinks as the trains chugs on to her new life on Munich street in Germany. The Book Thief is a dramatic, heartfelt, historical novel about a German orphan during WWII. It can easily grab your attention with its tragedies and and heartbreaks, but only for those who are willing to take on the lovely life of Liesel Meminger and her captivating story. I recommend this book to students ages 13+ because you need to be old enough to really understand and appreciate this book, for it is an intriguing story that deserves your undivided attention.

  Let’s start with the author. Markus Zusak, the author of The Book Thief, was born, raised, and is still living in Australia with his wife and two children. He published The Book Thief in 2005 at age 30. Since then, The Book Thief has the number one position at Amazon.com and on the New York Times best-seller list, as well as being translated into more than 30 languages! Zusak has won many, many awards for this incredible book. This information can be found at Wikipedia along with much more detail about his life.

The book begins with its main character, Liesel Meminger. She is a young girl growing up in Germany during WWII. Liesel lives with her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, outside of Munich. She learns to cope with the loss of her brother and the accompanying nightmares through reading. Hans is hiding Max, a young Jewish man whose father saved Hans’ life in WWI, in the basement. Liesel and Max develop a friendship when Liesel realizes that Max suffers from nightmares, too. They begin spending time reading together, cementing their bond and giving Liesel insight into the story that she may write.

First of all, the book makes me feel dreary at some points. For example, when Liesel’s brother dies on the train. That was a very sorrowful moment of the book. However, some parts of the book make me laugh. One of these parts is when Rudy and Liesel first meet. Rudy asks to race Liesel down the street and says that if he wins, he gets a kiss from her. These are a couple of things I feel as I read the book. As you can see, this book contains many events that cause diverse feelings.

This book is full of many inspiring events, but what is the main theme the author is trying to get across? There are many themes in this book. The main theme that I wanted to focus my attention on is courage. The characters in this book show many examples of courage in different ways. Liesel, for instance. Her life in Germany during WWII is pretty tough. She shows courage as she trudges through her struggles of death, bombings, and thievery.

In my opinion, this book is amazing. The moment I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. It helped me to open my eyes and realize how lucky I truly am. The theme showed me that courage can be harder to use for others, it is used in big or small ways. This book is very inspiring. I encourage people to read The Book Thief because it is an emotional, heart-warming and touching novel. Anyone would be blessed to have the wonderful experience of being able to dwell in this book. I highly recommend The Book Thief to people that would love to go on an adventure into the past.