Young Adult Book Review (But Adults Can Read it Too!)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 
Reviewed by Lorraine Quinn Yaeger, Children’s Librarian

Before you are half way down the first page of this unforgettable book, you realize, with a start, that your narrator is Death.  And although we are told unassumingly by the same, that “it’s just a small story really, about, among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter and quite a lot of thievery…..”  The Book Thief and its characters still loom large in my mind weeks after reading it. You will never again be able to glibly say, “It’s just a book.”  The author’s message, writing about things his parents had seen growing up in Nazi Germany, is about the ability of books to feed the soul and the importance of words at that time, and what they were able to make people believe and do.  You will find The Book Thief in our YA (Young Adult) section, but it would also be a great book to read aloud with your middle school-ers and up as a family this summer.