I have read: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I have just finished reading this book. Took me 2 days. I suppose one of the good things about being ill, is that I can just lie in bed, or lounge around and read endlessly.

I bought it unintentionally. Well, I first saw it in the book shop and was intrigued by the title, but not enough to buy it. Over a couple of months, I had picked it up and put it back down a couple of times. I finally saw it at the MPH warehouse sale, and bought it. It was one of the few books that I bought over with me when I moved.

I liked it. For two days, I found myself caught up in the life of Liesel. For two days, I was Liesel, a 11 year old girl in Germany in 1939. The Nazi Germany bit was unintentional. Well, obviously intentional on the part of the writer, but not on my part. It was the fact the title really that got me, and the fact that the synopsis says that the act of stealing a book changed her life. Also, it was the title of the book she stole: 'A Grave Digger's Handbook'.

I am compelled to explain the coincidence of the Nazi Germany bit of the book because it seems to be all around me. With my stamps and my history books, and also my novels. Anyway, I digress. This is not important, and is not in fact, about the book.

The Grave Digger's Handbook turns out not to be significant, and simply is because she stole the book from a grave digger at her brother's funeral. She was 11 and couldn't read.

She is sent to a foster home, because we are later led to conclude, her father had been taken 'away' for being a communist and her mother was soon to meet the same fate. The children, Liesel and the brother at whose funeral Liesel steals the book, were being sent away to be cared for by the Hubbermanns.

There Liesel learns to read. She learns to love her new Papa and later, her new Mama. he learns to steal a few more books along the way, and other things as well. And she learns to keep the biggest secret a German in Nazi Germany can keep - that of a Jew in the basement. A Jew that she befriends, even as she joins the Hitler Youth and her Papa is taken into 'service' of the Nazi Party.

I liked it. It was a bit strange at the start, being narrated by Death himself. But that quickly passed, the strangeness, not the narration by Death. It is not too much about the war or its atrocities. Death, the narrator alludes to some things here and there. But as the story is really about this 11 year old girl, the war and life in the time of war is seen through her eyes. It is mentioned and described to some extent, but not dwelled upon. The fear is felt, but so far from the little joys that children find in the strangest ways.

All in all, it is a good book. Recommended.