The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak, Alfred A. Knopf, 550 pp., $11.99,

It was a cold winter day in Germany, a girl of 9 years of age, lies next to her brother’s dead corpse lying in the snow. Her name is Liesel Meminger. She is soon sent on a train to Molching, Germany where she will stay with a family named the Hubermanns. They are an old couple who are living off no money and very little food and cannot take another body to feed. Under great distress they take Liesel in and comfort her. She is unseen for the first few months but then settles in. She is soon playing in the streets with boys and girls from around the block and meets a boy named Rudy Steiner. One day, Liesel hears commotion and runs down to the end of Himmel Street and sees a line of Jewish prisoners being marched to the Concentration camp, Dachau. She was so interested because she did not understand what was happening. In the following weeks, very late at night, a young man came to the door at 33 Himmel Street Molching, Germany.
It was Max Vandenburg, a Jewish fugitive. He had been hidden by an old friend and now was on the run because of the fear of being capture. Hans Hubermann, the husband of Rosa Hubermann, took him in and kept him in the basement. Liesel did not understand why he had to stay in the basement until Hans came up to her and said “Liesel, if you tell anyone about that man up there, we will all be in big trouble…they will take you away from me…” (pg. 203). Every day, Liesel would bring down painting of what kind of day it was outside and show it to Max. He soon was able to start doing push ups on the basement floor because his strength had come back to him.
One day, Max got very sick with an illness that they did not know the cure to. He went into a deep sleep and stayed asleep for two months. Everyday, Liesel would bring a new thing she found to his bedside table and give it to him as a present. Max soon woke up and left very suddenly with out saying goodbye. As the war got more and more violent, soon there were bomb sirens which would make everyone move to a house at the end of the street. One night, a loud BING-BING-BING sounded and everyone ran into the house. They waited in fear. Will everyone live? Is everyone going to die?
These were the kind of questions I was asking myself as I read this mind-boggling book. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak possesses action, love, and suspense in one novel making it absolutely incredible. Liesel fights through a very hard time with friends by her side. I give this book 10 out of 10 and will make you laugh, cry, and scream with temptation until the last page is turned. “It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.”