Citation:
Zusak, Markus. The
Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.
Annotation:
In a sea of people, it can be hard to focus on one single
person. Now imagine you are Death embodied coming to collect souls of the dead.
The Book Thief takes place in Nazi Germany. Death also can not spend too much
time dwelling any single soul as he collects the fallen in WWII. Yet, on one of
Death’s many burdensome hauls, he comes across a girl, Liesel, as he gentle
gathers her six year old brother’s soul. He lingers as they bury the body and
sees her steal a book. So starts Death’s narration of the orphan nine year old Liesel
as she adjusts to her foster family. Along the way, she learns how words and
books have power to both destroy and create. Death shields nothing in his
omniscience musing. The book is lyrical, complex and layered in multiple
meaning.
Justification for Nomination:
First of all, this is not an easy book to read. The words
are so rich that in parts the book reads like poetry. More than one storyline
happens. Those strands can be hard to hold because there significance is
unknown. Still, the story told by Death keeps the pages turning. The characters
are like the people seen everyday and relatable. Liesel is just an average girl
struggling to make sense of her world. Through Death’s eyes, not cold and hard
like you’d think, the reader will come to care about the characters because
they recognize them in the people around them. You have to trust that the final
picture is a cohesive vision of
humanity- all that is good, wicked and those sacred pieces of ourselves
we must never surrender.
Genre:
Printz Honoree Mention Book
