Zusak’s characters have depth and appeal (even cranky Rosa): the banter between them often lifts the tension from serious moments with some quite black humour. While the Fuhrer and Mein Kampf play integral parts, illustrating the use of words for evil, the emphasis is on the struggle of the common man (and woman) to do the right thing in a dangerous environment. This much-awarded, best-selling novel looks at war from a different perspective: the effects it has on ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives in an ordinary town. With her best friend, Rudy Steiner, Liesel embarks on a career of thievery, starting with apples but graduating, eventually, to books from the Mayor’s library, although her first books are acquired in quite a different manner. But the presence of this unassuming man also helps to expand Liesel’s experience of reading and of life. The anxiety level rises when Max Vandenburg, a Jew, comes to hide in the basement. Cranky Rosa keeps the family fed with her washing and ironing service while kind Hans paints when it is needed, plays the accordion and teaches Liesel to read, all on the background of deprivation, anxiety and fear that is wartime Germany.

Liesel comes to 33 Himmel Strasse in Molchen to foster parents Rosa and Hans Hubermann, having just lost her younger brother, Werner to Death’s grasp. Death was decidedly overworked during the war, but he informs the reader that he saw young Liesel Meminger three times in those years before he finally took her much later. The setting is Nazi Germany just before the start of World War Two, through to 1943, and the story is narrated by Death. The Book Thief is the fifth novel by Australian author, Markus Zusak. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. The Book Thief is a story about the power of words and the ability of books to feed the soul. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her foster father, learns to read. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. By her brother's graveside, Liesel Meminger's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow.

Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

The book thief original cover