“Liesel is a Book Thief by Markus Zusak, an abandoned child, struggling to survive in war-time Germany. Her father has been taken away, branded communist; her mother vanishes. The book is positioned as juvenile fiction, a story for teenage readers, of courage, friendship, love, survival, death, and grief. This is Liesel’s life on Himmel Street, told from Death’s point of view. In the late 1930s, Liesel Meminger is only nine years old when taken to live with the Hubermanns, a foster family, on Himmel Street in Molching, Germany. She arrives with few possessions, but among them is The Grave Digger’s Handbook, a book that she stole from her brother’s burial place. Liesel is illiterate when she steals her first book, but Hans Hubermann uses her prized books to teach her to read. During the years that Liesel lives with the Hubermanns, Hitler becomes more powerful, life on Himmel Street becomes more fearful, and Liesel becomes a fullfledged book thief. She rescues books from Nazi book-burnings and steals from the library of the mayor’s wife. This woman, a ghost and recluse since the death of her son in the last war, opens a little to life again by her complicity in Liesel's thieving. Her books allow Liesel to distract those who huddle in the Fiedlers' basement during air raids. She "handed out the story" to them in instalments, not concerned about whether, or how, it will come to an end. Parents need to know that this book is intended for teens and adults. Read the book and relate it, in just one instance, to the events which led to the rise of Nazi Germany.”
