The Book Thief

“Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it.” 

Finally, I decided to review the book thief. I know it has been year and a half since I read this book and I am not absolutely sure that I can remember everything about it, but after watching the movie, I felt that I should put into words what this book meant to me.

All my friends know how much I like storytelling, but that doesn't mean that I can hear anyone telling a story. To be a good storyteller for me means to be able to draw characters, to blow life into them. It means to create a whole world with all the needed details, to bring music to my ears and make me smell the odor of the flowers, to make me feel the heat of the fire. I want to open the door of a magical world whenever I open the book.  

Markus Zusak is without any doubt a very talented storyteller. “The Book Thief” tells the journey of Leisel in the time of World War II.
Leisel is a girl coming from a communist family; she lost her brother on her way to the foster house. Leisel, the girl who can’t read or write stole her first book at her brother’s grave and by the help of her new Papa Hans Hubermann, she learned her first words .
 

In her new life, she meets Rudy, a neighbor who becomes her best friend and their innocent acts make us see that no one is born racist.

The story hits her target, when Hans and his wife hide Max, a Jewish man running from the Nazis. Leisel and Max develop a deep relation, both needing a family and a shelter, a place to run to in a society that is ruled by death and fear.

Leisel, the little thief, steals a lot of books along her journey in World War II. She uses them to help max get over his solitude and to create different worlds inside the small Hubermann’s basement where Max stays.

So many personalities interfere in this story and each one represents one aspect of the society back then.  Max the doomed Jewish, Hans the German man who stood for his Jewish friend’s son, Rudy the innocent boy who sees the world as it is without racism and Leisel who finds love and peace in the least expected places.

The heartbreaking end of this book, and all the bitter moments you pass through make you see how far humans can go with their violence and their love.

While reading the book thief, you will benefit from a large look upon Germany in the 1940’s, you will feel sad and I am absolutely sure you will cry sometimes, but believe me you will live one of the most amazing stories ever.

PS: if you haven’t read the book, then don’t watch the movie because the later has nothing to do with this beautiful story.