Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I decided to do something different with this review. I knew that one of my frequent commenters, Ken Armstrong, had read The Book Thief too, and since I was having trouble writing a review but did want to write one, I asked him to collaborate.
By the way, if anyone else wants to collaborate on a book review like this, let me know which book you’d like to have a go at, and I’ll see what can be done! (No Harlequin/Mills & Boon, please, but most other stuff is far game.)
Ken’s rating: 7 out of 10
It’s January 1939 in Nazi Germany, eight months before the outbreak of World War Two. Liesel Meminger is travelling to Mölking, a town near Munich, to be fostered by Rosa and Hans Hubberman. During the train journey that she’s making with her mother and younger brother, her brother dies; during his funeral, Liesel steals her first book, The Gravedigger’s Handbook.
The Book Thief tells the story of Liesl over the next five years: her new parents, wardrobe-shaped, bad-tempered Rosa and calm, accordion-playing Hans who teaches her to read her first stolen book; her best friend Rudy; the poverty-stricken life she leads in wartime Germany; and perhaps most importantly, the books she steals and the Jew in the basement and the words he shares with her.
