![Cover image for The book thief [Audiobook]](https://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&client=charlottecofl&upc=&oclc=868198496&isbn=9780804168434&issn=/LC.JPG "Cover image for The book thief [Audiobook]")
Available:*
Library | Material Type | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Punta Gorda | Audiobooks | YA ZUS CD | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
DON'T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY , MARKUS ZUSAK'S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF .
The extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller that is now a major motion picture, Markus Zusak's unforgettable story is about the ability of books to feed the soul.
Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read .
When Death has a story to tell, you listen.
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.
Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist-books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.
"The kind of book that can be life-changing." -- The New York Times
"Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank." -- USA Today
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This hefty volume is an achievement-a challenging book in both length and subject, and best suited to sophisticated older readers. The narrator is Death himself, a companionable if sarcastic fellow, who travels the globe "handing souls to the conveyor belt of eternity." Death keeps plenty busy during the course of this WWII tale, even though Zusak (I Am the Messenger) works in miniature, focusing on the lives of ordinary Germans in a small town outside Munich. Liesel Meminger, the book thief, is nine when she pockets The Gravedigger's Handbook, found in a snowy cemetery after her little brother's funeral. Liesel's father-a "Kommunist"-is already missing when her mother hands her into the care of the Hubermanns. Rosa Hubermann has a sharp tongue, but Hans has eyes "made of kindness." He helps Liesel overcome her nightmares by teaching her to read late at night. Hans is haunted himself, by the Jewish soldier who saved his life during WWI. His promise to repay that debt comes due when the man's son, Max, shows up on his doorstep. This "small story," as Death calls it, threads together gem-like scenes of the fates of families in this tight community, and is punctuated by Max's affecting, primitive artwork rendered on painted-over pages from Mein Kampf. Death also directly addresses readers in frequent asides; Zusak's playfulness with language leavens the horror and makes the theme even more resonant-words can save your life. As a storyteller, Death has a bad habit of forecasting ("I'm spoiling the ending," he admits halfway through his tale). It's a measure of how successfully Zusak has humanized these characters that even though we know they are doomed, it's no less devastating when Death finally reaches them. Ages 12-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Set in a small town in Nazi Germany, Zusak's sweeping, ultimately heartbreaking novel is told (appropriately, by Death itself) in gorgeous language that contrasts markedly with the stark events -- just as main character Liesel's rich life contrasts with the bleakness of her circumstances. Audiobook narrator Corduner confidingly draws listeners in before Liesel steals a single book; and each character is sharply delineated, from the deep-thinking, compassionate Death to Liesel's hectoring foster mother. Corduner effortlessly handles the book's distinctively expansive yet intimate nature in a tour de force performance. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 10-12. Death is the narrator of this lengthy, powerful story of a town in Nazi Germany. He is a kindly, caring Death, overwhelmed by the souls he has to collect from people in the gas chambers, from soldiers on the battlefields, and from civilians killed in bombings. Death focuses on a young orphan, Liesl; her loving foster parents; the Jewish fugitive they are hiding; and a wild but gentle teen neighbor, Rudy, who defies the Hitler Youth and convinces Liesl to steal for fun. After Liesl learns to read, she steals books from everywhere. When she reads a book in the bomb shelter, even a Nazi woman is enthralled. Then the book thief writes her own story. There's too much commentary at the outset, and too much switching from past to present time, but as in Zusak's enthralling I Am the Messenger (2004), the astonishing characters, drawn without sentimentality, will grab readers. More than the overt message about the power of words, it's Liesl's confrontation with horrifying cruelty and her discovery of kindness in unexpected places that tell the heartbreaking truth. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Nazi Germany during World War II is the backdrop for this "small story" that explores the power of words to affect the human condition. Death is the narrator here, performed with detached perfection by Corduner, recounting the story of the young thief, Liesel, who discovers books have the ability to sustain her community amidst the horrors of war. This 2007 Michael L. Printz Honor Book is also a Common Core text exemplar for grades 9-10. Common Core Standard: RL.9-10.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. Content Standard: Massachusetts (Reading Standards for Literature 6-12) Grades 9-10: MA.8.A. Relate a work of fiction, poetry, or drama to the seminal ideas of its time. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
The state of Israel gives non-Jews who saved Jewish lives, or attempted to save Jewish lives, the formal recognition of being Righteous Among the Nations. In the introduction to his 2002 book The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust , Martin Gilbert quotes Baruch Sharoni, a member of the committee that recognises the Righteous, as writing "[S]o many more who could have contributed to the rescue did not . . . I see the savers as true noble souls of the human race, and when I meet with them I feel somewhat inferior to them. For I know that if I had been in their place I wouldn't have been capable of such deeds." It is this sentiment which resonates as one reads Markus Zusak's truly remarkable novel. In The Book Thief , the man hiding a Jew named Max Vandenburg is decorator and part-time accordion player Hans Hubermann. One of the reasons why he's hiding this particular man is because Max's father saved his own life when they were both German soldiers in the first world war. He and his wife Rosa have also adopted a girl named Liesel, the main character of this tale. The growing relationships between Hubermann and Liesel and, later, Liesel and Max Vandenburg are central to the plot. To reveal that the story is told by Death himself may well conjure up images of Terry Pratchett's Death, in the Discworld novels, or even seem distasteful or wholly inappropriate considering the subject matter. In Zusak's hands, this narrative device is none of these things. It gives a unique and compassionate voice to a narrator who can comment on human's inhumanity to human without being ponderous, "worthy" or even quite understanding us at times. This is a beautifully balanced piece of storytelling with glimpses of what is yet to come: sometimes misleading, sometimes all too true. We meet all shades of German, from truly committed Nazis to the likes of Hans Hubermann. Zusak is no apologist, but able to give a remarkable insight into the human psyche. In addition to Liesel, the book thief of the title, characters who particularly stand out are Rudy Steiner, a close friend who is obsessed with the black athlete Jesse Owens; Ilsa Hermann, the mayor's wife, who has never recovered from the loss of her own son; both of Liesel's adoptive parents; and Max himself, who writes and illustrates a strangely beautiful short story for Liesel over whitewashed pages from a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf Zusak, an Australian author, has said that writing the book was inspired by two real-life events related to him by his German parents: the bombing of Munich, and a teenage boy offering bread to an emaciated Jew being marched through the streets, ending with both boy and Jewish prisoner being whipped by a soldier. It is, however, the way in which Zusak combines such terrible events with such believable characters and the minutiae of everyday life in Nazi Germany that makes this book so special. A number one New York Times bestseller, The Book Thief has been marketed as an older children's book in some countries and as an adult novel in others. It could and - dare I say? - should certainly be read by both. Unsettling, thought-provoking, life-affirming, triumphant and tragic, this is a novel of breathtaking scope, masterfully told. It is an important piece of work, but also a wonderful page-turner. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Philip Ardagh is currently working on a novel for older children, due for publication by Faber in 2008. To order The Book Thief for pounds 11.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop Caption: article-bookthief.1 In The Book Thief , the man hiding a Jew named Max Vandenburg is decorator and part-time accordion player Hans Hubermann. One of the reasons why he's hiding this particular man is because Max's father saved his own life when they were both German soldiers in the first world war. He and his wife Rosa have also adopted a girl named Liesel, the main character of this tale. The growing relationships between Hubermann and Liesel and, later, Liesel and Max Vandenburg are central to the plot. In addition to Liesel, the book thief of the title, characters who particularly stand out are Rudy Steiner, a close friend who is obsessed with the black athlete Jesse Owens; Ilsa Hermann, the mayor's wife, who has never recovered from the loss of her own son; both of Liesel's adoptive parents; and Max himself, who writes and illustrates a strangely beautiful short story for Liesel over whitewashed pages from a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf - Philip Ardagh.
Kirkus Review
When Death tells a story, you pay attention. Liesel Meminger is a young girl growing up outside of Munich in Nazi Germany, and Death tells her story as "an attempt--a flying jump of an attempt--to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it." When her foster father helps her learn to read and she discovers the power of words, Liesel begins stealing books from Nazi book burnings and the mayor's wife's library. As she becomes a better reader, she becomes a writer, writing a book about her life in such a miserable time. Liesel's experiences move Death to say, "I am haunted by humans." How could the human race be "so ugly and so glorious" at the same time? This big, expansive novel is a leisurely working out of fate, of seemingly chance encounters and events that ultimately touch, like dominoes as they collide. The writing is elegant, philosophical and moving. Even at its length, it's a work to read slowly and savor. Beautiful and important. (Fiction. 12+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
