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From Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)

Both intimate and sweeping, Markus Zusak’s unforgettable novel is set just before and during World War II, among everyday German people living in a Munich suburb. The focal point of his story is Liesel, a young girl being placed in foster care as the story opens. Her mother, unknown to Liesel, faces imprisonment—and probable death—for being a communist. Liesel’s foster mother, Rosa, has a brisk manner and foul mouth but it eventually becomes clear that it’s all just a mask, protection for her soft and tender heart. By contrast, Liesel’s foster father, Hans, has a goodness that is immediate and shining. He patiently teaches Liesel to read, and words—those written, those read, those spoken, and those left unsaid—become one of the defining forces in Liesel’s life. As the war escalates, Liesel becomes a collaborator in a family secret: they are harboring a Jewish man named Max in their basement. Liesel can tell no one about Max, not even her best friend, Rudy, the free-spirited boy next door who dreams of being Jesse Owens and has loved Liesel from the moment they met. But she does tell Max about Rudy and other things happening in her life, brightening his dark basement days and nights with stories; a gift that he ultimately returns. When Liesel starts stealing books from the library of the mayor’s wife, a woman immersed in grief over the loss of her son in the last war, her thievery is a bold, decisive act in a world where much is spinning out of control. Some people in Liesel’s neighborhood are Nazi sympathizers. Others, like Rudy’s parents, follow all the rules in the futile hope they won’t draw attention to themselves or their family. Yet many in their town willingly participate in book burning, and many come out to watch the ruthless forced march of Jewish prisoners on the road to Dachau, all but a handful seemingly unmoved by a scene that is, or should be, unbearable. How can human nature be explained? That question, and humanity itself, haunts the novel’s narrator: Death. His job is to gather the souls of the dead, and while he does not pass judgment he is far from unmoved by all he sees. In Liesel’s story, which embraces so many other lives, he—and we—find everything that human beings are capable of enduring, inflicting, bestowing, and achieving: from sorrow, sadness, and cruelty beyond comprehension to incredible compassion, kindness, and joy. It offers both despair and hope for humanity. A literary masterpiece that will engage older teens and adults, The Book Thief’s exquisite prose reveals extraordinary characters caught up in inexplicable times, and illuminates the worst and best of who we are. (Age 15 and older)

CCBC Choices 2007 © Cooperative Children's Book Center, Univ. of Wisconsin - Madison, 2007. Used with permission.

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from November 13, 2006
Corduner uses considerable zeal and a talent for accents to navigate Zusak's compelling, challenging novel set in Nazi Germany. Death serves as knowing narrator for the tale, which is framed much like a lengthy flashback. The storytelling aspects of this structure include asides to the listener, and lots of foreshadowing about what eventually happens to the various lead characters—appealing features for listeners. But Corduner seems to most enjoy embracing the heart of things here—the rather small and ordinary saga of 10-year-old Liesel Meminger, who has been given over to a foster family following her mother's branding as a "Kommunist" and the death of her younger brother. Under her foster parents' care, she learns how to read, how to keep terrifying secrets and how to hone her skills as a book thief, a practice that keeps her sane and feeds her newfound love of words. With quick vocal strokes, Corduner paints vivid, provocative portraits of Germans and Jews under unfathomable duress and the ripple effect such circumstances have on their lives. Ages 12-up.

From Horn Book

July 1, 2006
Death itself narrates this deeply affecting tale of young book lover Liesel, her loving foster parents, and the Jew hiding in their basement. They struggle, with their small, poor community, to endure the double-edged dangers of Nazi Germany. Zusak's poignant tribute to words, survival, and their inevitable entwinement is a tour de force to be not just read but inhabited.

(Copyright 2006 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From School Library Journal

Starred review from March 1, 2006
Gr 9 Up -Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book -although she has not yet learned how to read -and her foster father uses it, "The Gravedigger -s Handbook", to lull her to sleep when she -s roused by regular nightmares about her younger brother -s death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayor -s reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesel -s story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative." -Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

From Horn Book

Starred review from March 1, 2006
Death itself narrates this deeply affecting tale of "a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery." It is 1939 when nine-year-old Liesel, on her way to a foster home in Molching, Germany, steals a book -- the first she's ever owned -- from a graveyard. From then through 1943, her life is chronicled in books stolen (from Nazi book burnings; from the mayor's wife), books given (by her foster parents, irascible Rosa and kindly Hans Hubermann; by Max Vandenburg, the Jew hiding in their basement), and books written (her own story, finished in that basement during a devastating air raid). As her relationships and beliefs deepen, Liesel grows into a tough, earnest heroine, convincingly ordinary yet with an extraordinary capacity for caring. The small, poor town of Molching proves an effective microcosm for exploring the double-edged dangers faced by everyday Germans, and Zusak's gift for detail brings its streets and citizens richly to life. As a narrator, Death is startlingly, wrenchingly compassionate, struggling to turn away from the survivors left behind to live with "punctured hearts" and "beaten lungs" yet immeasurably moved by the tenderness they wring from despair -- Liesel building a snowman in the basement with Max; her best friend Rudy placing a teddy bear on the chest of a dying Allied pilot. Exquisitely written and memorably populated, Zusak's poignant tribute to words, survival, and their curiously inevitable entwinement is a tour de force to be not just read but inhabited.

(Copyright 2006 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

From Publisher's Weekly

Starred review from January 30, 2006
This hefty volume is an achievement—a challenging book in both length and subject, and best suited to sophisticated older readers. The narrator is Death himself, a companionable if sarcastic fellow, who travels the globe "handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity." Death keeps plenty busy during the course of this WWII tale, even though Zusak (I Am the Messenger
) works in miniature, focusing on the lives of ordinary Germans in a small town outside Munich. Liesel Meminger, the book thief, is nine when she pockets The Gravedigger's Handbook
, found in a snowy cemetery after her little brother's funeral. Liesel's father—a "Kommunist"—is already missing when her mother hands her into the care of the Hubermanns. Rosa Hubermann has a sharp tongue, but Hans has eyes "made of kindness." He helps Liesel overcome her nightmares by teaching her to read late at night. Hans is haunted himself, by the Jewish soldier who saved his life during WWI. His promise to repay that debt comes due when the man's son, Max, shows up on his doorstep. This "small story," as Death calls it, threads together gem-like scenes of the fates of families in this tight community, and is punctuated by Max's affecting, primitive artwork rendered on painted-over pages from Mein Kampf
. Death also directly addresses readers in frequent asides; 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 ("I'm spoiling the ending," he admits halfway through his tale). It's 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. Ages 12-up.

From Booklist

January 1, 2006
Gr. 10-12. Death is the narrator of this lengthy, powerful story of a town in Nazi Germany. He is a kindly, caring Death, overwhelmed by the souls he has to collect from people in the gas chambers, from soldiers on the battlefields, and from civilians killed in bombings. Death focuses on a young orphan, Liesl; her loving foster parents; the Jewish fugitive they are hiding; and a wild but gentle teen neighbor, Rudy, who defies the Hitler Youth and convinces Liesl to steal for fun. After Liesl learns to read, she steals books from everywhere. When she reads a book in the bomb shelter, even a Nazi woman is enthralled. Then the book thief writes her own story. There's too much commentary at the outset, and too much switching from past to present time, but as in Zusak's enthralling " I Am the Messenger" (2004), the astonishing characters, drawn without sentimentality, will grab readers. More than the overt message about the power of words, it's Liesl's confrontation with horrifying cruelty and her discovery of kindness in unexpected places that tell the heartbreaking truth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

From AudioFile Magazine

This powerful Holocaust story is for mature, sophisticated teens and adults. Set in Nazi Germany, narrated by Death, it is 9-year-old Liesel Meminger's story. Death watches as she steals the first of 14 books at her brother's funeral, sensing they will feed her soul even before she knows how to read. Allan Corduner gives Death a strong personality with a dispassionate voice that will grip the listener; by turns sardonic, compassionate, with a dark humor, he takes no pride in being part of man's deadly cruelty to man. Corduner gives Death a voice we rarely imagine for him, as fearful of humans as we are of him, and an unwillingly participant in man's cruel, deadly events. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine