see Death (Reading Response #1)

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

A few weeks ago I recieved The Book Thief for Christmas. I picked it out at the book fair on December 8th while stuck working the craft fair. I've seen several people reading it (Sarah Clark among them) which made me want to pick it up.

The cover looks intereting enough - a row of dominos with one about to be tipped over - forboding a string of events starting at a certain time or place. The back, of course, is filled with critics reviews and awards won. underneath that lies the description, starting off with four simple sentences - "It's 1929. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still." What? Death? Is this a weird emo book? How could Death be a character? All immediate throughts when I read that.

From the description I learn that the book is actually about a girl - Liesel Meminger - and her stealing books. Her brother died, tragically, and she was sent off to a foster family.

The book thus far is narrated by Death himself. An interesting viewpoint if I ever saw one. Death makes interruptions in the text by inserting information, translations, half-jokes and small side stories to make the story understandable. Some are long, some are short, and all are attention-grabbing.

As Liesel adapts to her new life, she meets a boy named Rudy whom she quickly befriends. He shows her around the town one day and this is where they go last:

"***THE LAST STOP***

The road of yellow stars.

It was a place nobody wanted to stay and look at, but almost everyone did. Shaped like a long, broken arm, the road contained several houses with lacerated windows and bruised walls. The Star of David was painted on their doors. Those houses were almost like lepers... At the bottom, some people were moving around. The drizzle made them look like ghosts. Not humans, but shapes, moving about beneath the lead-colored clouds."

I love this description. It provokes a feeling of despair, of desolation and pain. The "lacerated windows and bruised walls" lined the "long, broken arm" of a street with people milling about, oppressed under the heavy "lead" sky.

Zusak has a way with descriptions and metaphors everywhere in his writing, it's easy to understand and relate to.

This book?

Read it.

Cheers,      

Michelle