The book thief

The Book Thief is a novel written by Markus Zusak, an Australian writer also known for other novels as Cartas Cruzadas. He published this book in 2005 and with it, he won the literary prize Michale L. Printz in 2007 and he achieved a record of 105 weeks on the list of youth novels of the New York Times. 

An interesting fact related to the biography of this author is the interest that he have, since he was little, about the Nazi Germany, the bombing of Munich, the Jewish abuse,… interests that linked with the different experiences lived by their parents, from Australia and Germany, during the Second World War helped and inspired him to write The Book Thief. 

Unlike other works as El niño del pijama de rayas of John Boyne, La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz of Antonio Iturbe or Bajo el mismo cielo of Núria Pradas and in which the authors talk about what was lived during the Second World War from different points of view: the son of a nazi general, Jews and prisoners in a concentration camp,… the The Book Thief does it from a quite different and less common perspective: from the point of view of German citizens who, as far as is possible, try to go on with their lives as the war is progressing. That way, the history of the novel revolves around the host family of Liessel Meissl, a little Germany girl who because of the war, she would live various adventures and misadventures, she would meet different characters that will mark her life as Rudy, a guy obsessed with Jesse Owen and who will became her best friend; Max, a young Jewish that Liessel family will try to hide in his basement and many others as Hans or Rosa, characters that will teach her the love of reading and writing. In fact, as the novel progresses, we will realize the reason of the tittle: Liessel, after get to her new home and after the death of his little brother, she develops a great love for the reading and writing thanks to her new father and her new friend Max and for this, she will try to gather and collect all books she found and even, she will steal some books from the library of the woman of the mayor of the city who will baptize she as “the book thief”.

Another singularity of this book that makes it special and different is the narrator: the death. She (not the typical one wearing a layer and holding a sickle) tells us, at the beginning of the novel, that there are few stories in the world worthwhile tell but that the book thief is one of those.

Personally, books with this kind of thematic, I mean, based on the First or Second World War, about the Nazi concentration camps and other historical facts are of my favourites whereby I have read a lot of them and I have to say that this one in particular, The Book Thief, surprise you for the originality of the narrator and for other things as the topics discusses or rather, the way that the author explains them because he doesn't focus, as the main majority, in the conflict itself or in the refugees or prisoners lives,  but history reveals us the life of the German population during the war: how young people were recruited, families without fathers, how the population reacts in the middle of the night in front of the sirens that announced possibleairstrikes and also, the more depressive and dark episodes of the war are mix with friendship or comic episodes and all narrated by an a compassionate death.

For all of this I think that, independently whether you like this genre or not, you should give a chance to this novel because it has a complete history inside, and if you don't feel like reading, last year was relased the film!!