The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zusak, Markus. (2005). The Book Thief. (A. Corduner, Narrator) [Audiobook]. South Texas Digital            Libraries https://libbyapp.com/open/loan/77425571/109933 ISBN 978-0375842207

PLOT SUMMARY

Markus Zusak writes the story about Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich.

This story occurred during World War II when nothing was certain for the Jewish community.

With work and food shortages, it quickly became a fight for survival. After the death of her

brother, which haunts her in her dreams, she now lives with her new foster parents. But her

new family is desperately trying to hide a Jew from the Nazis in their basement. As the

world around her is tumbling down, she finds herself stealing books at every opportunity

that lends itself to help her escape reality in a book and soon to help others escape as well.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Markus Zusak writes this unique intense historical fiction novel which occurs during World

War II and the Holocaust era. This story reminded me in certain ways of “Diary of Anne

Frank”. With living and hiding in secrecy with the danger of Nazis patrolling the area.

Allan Corduner does an amazing job narrating as "Death." His different tones enable me

to feel as though I am actually in the story alongside him. The unique narration in this

story takes me to another place, as though I am watching an entertaining play. I highly

recommend this suspenseful audiobook.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

"Elegant, philosophical and moving...Beautiful and important."

- Kirkus Reviews, Starred

"This hefty volume is an achievement...a challenging book in both length

and subject..."

- Publisher's Weekly, Starred

"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."

- The Horn Book Magazine, Starred

CONNECTIONS

"The Book Thief will be appreciated for Mr. Zusak's audacity, also on display in

his earlier I Am the Messenger. It will be widely read and admired because it tells a

story in which books become treasures. And because there's no arguing with a

sentiment like that."

- New York Times

"The Book Thiefis unsettling and unsentimental, yet ultimately poetic. Its grimness
and tragedy run through the reader's mind like a black-and-white movie, bereft of 

the colors of life. Zusak may not have lived under Nazi domination, but The Book 

Thief deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne 

Frank and Elie Wiesel's Night. It seems poised to become a classic."
- USA Today

"Zusak doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but he makes his ostensibly gloomy subject

bearable the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse-Five: with grim,

darkly consoling humor.”

- Time Magazine

• “The Book Thief” is a 2013 film directed by Brian Percival and written by

Michael Petroni.

AWARDS

• Indies Choice Book Award for Children's Literature

• National Jewish Book Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature

• Kathleen Mitchell Award