eBook
English language
Published Nov. 25, 2008 by Random House Publishing Group.
The story of a young German girl who steals books, of her family and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in Nazi Germany when the bombs begin to fall.HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATHIt's a small story, about:a girlan accordionistsome fanatical Germansa Jewish fist fighterand quite a lot of thievery.ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES
The story of a young German girl who steals books, of her family and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in Nazi Germany when the bombs begin to fall.HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATHIt's a small story, about:a girlan accordionistsome fanatical Germansa Jewish fist fighterand quite a lot of thievery.ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES
I wanted to enjoy this. I would say I was moderately invested by the end but I didn’t love it. I felt confused trying to follow the characters and the timeline. I liked the concept of the story being told by death in Nazi Germany during World War II. I would’ve guessed the book was written longer ago than 2005 based on how it was written. I’m glad I read it but I wouldn’t want to read it again.
I normally steer clear of two kinds of books; coming of age stories and historical novels, in particular those set during world war II. This book is both, and I loved it anyway, which should tell you something.
What the author does with language and narrative framing is simply out of this world.
Superb.
Reading books about WWII in Germany is hard for me. I don't know, the scope of what transpired back then, and the thought that my parents were part of the Nazi youth groups, it's a bit much. At least until the middle of the book, I was pretty meh about it all. The narrator, the Denglish, the for me very weird sentence structure, it put me off.
But the longer you read, the more all those various characters of Himmel Street grow on you. From Liesel to Rosa to the mayor's wife or Rudy, they're all very touching characters. They make the book. And that's why in the end I came to love this book about a German family in a small Bavarian town near Munich, and all the various, touching, tragic events that happened during the war.
Reading books about WWII in Germany is hard for me. I don't know, the scope of what transpired back then, and the thought that my parents were part of the Nazi youth groups, it's a bit much. At least until the middle of the book, I was pretty meh about it all. The narrator, the Denglish, the for me very weird sentence structure, it put me off.
But the longer you read, the more all those various characters of Himmel Street grow on you. From Liesel to Rosa to the mayor's wife or Rudy, they're all very touching characters. They make the book. And that's why in the end I came to love this book about a German family in a small Bavarian town near Munich, and all the various, touching, tragic events that happened during the war.
