The Book Thief Review: The Book That Made Me Fall in Love With Reading

If I were stranded on a desert island and could take only one book, I’d take The Book Thief. Markus Zusak’s novel is one of my all-time favorites, and it’s the book that made me fall in love with reading. I still think about Hans Hubermann sitting with Liesel as she sounds out words from a gravedigger’s handbook. It’s a strange book to learn from, especially for a girl who has just lost her brother. That’s part of what makes those scenes so tender. Hans works with the book Liesel has, and he gives her all the time she needs.

What is The Book Thief about?

In Nazi Germany, young Liesel Meminger is on her way to live with a foster family when her brother dies. At his burial, she picks up a book dropped by a gravedigger. She can’t read it yet, but she takes it with her to Himmel Street in Molching, where she moves in with Hans and Rosa Hubermann.

Hans teaches Liesel to read after her nightmares wake her. On Himmel Street, she also meets Rudy Steiner, who makes her laugh and gets into trouble alongside her. Then Hans and Rosa take in Max Vandenburg, a Jewish man fleeing Nazi persecution. Liesel and Max become friends in the basement where he hides, and the stories they share give them something to look forward to.

Why Death is my favorite part of The Book Thief

Making Death the narrator is still one of the best literary choices I’ve ever come across. Death notices the colors of the sky as he goes about his work, and sometimes he tells us what’s going to happen well before it does. It’s a move that could drain all the suspense from a novel. Here, it makes ordinary scenes more precious. I pay closer attention when Rudy makes Liesel laugh because Death has already made me think about how little time people get together.

Death has seen enough of people to know how cruel they can be. He still sounds curious about what they’ll do for each other. I feel that curiosity most strongly when the story pulls back from the scale of the war to look at one person doing something small, like Hans staying up with Liesel or Max making her a book. Death gives those moments room in his account of a war that keeps him terribly busy.

What Liesel does with the words she learns

One of my favorite threads is the way Liesel’s reading changes depending on who’s in the room. With Hans, she can stumble over a word and try it again. With Max, she gets to be the person who goes outside, notices the weather and comes back with a description of the sky. During an air raid, she reads aloud in a shelter, and her neighbors have something to listen to while they wait.

I especially love what Max does with the pages of Mein Kampf. He paints over them and uses them to make Liesel an illustrated book called The Standover Man. I think about how much time he spends on a gift for one person. In a novel where the Nazi regime uses words to tell millions of people whom to hate, Max uses the paper at hand to tell one girl how much her friendship means to him.

Rudy gives the book a different kind of warmth. I love how much room Zusak makes for the two of them to tease each other and get into trouble. The friendship feels like something Liesel would remember in detail years later, right down to the jokes that probably sounded funnier on Himmel Street.

Why I’d take The Book Thief to a desert island

I’d take this book because I know where I’d turn first. Some days I’d want the scenes with Hans and Liesel sounding out words. Other days I’d want Rudy. Knowing the story makes it easier to slow down and spend time with the people in it. That’s what I want from a book I’ll read again and again.

If you’re deciding whether to read it, I’d recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction that spends time on the daily lives of its characters. The war shapes what the people on Himmel Street can say and do, and Zusak gives you enough time with them to understand what those choices cost. Years later, I still remember what it felt like to realize how much I cared about a girl learning to read from a gravedigger’s handbook.

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Find the paperback of The Book Thief on Amazon.

Further reading

• The Book Thief ending explained (contains spoilers)
• The best World War II books of all time
• 20 essential classics to read

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