Media Reviews

New York Times - Janet Maslin The Book Thief will be appreciated for Mr. Zusak's audacity, also on display in his earlier I Am the Messenger. It will be widely read and admired because it tells a story in which books become treasures.

USA Today - Carol Memmott The Book Thief is unsettling and unsentimental, yet ultimately poetic. Its grimness and tragedy run through the reader's mind like a black-and-white movie, bereft of the colors of life. Zusak may not have lived under Nazi domination, but The Book Thief deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel's Night. It seems poised to become a classic.

San Francisco Chronicle - Reyhan Harmanci Writing fiction about the Holocaust is a risky endeavor. Most children learn about it in history class, or through nonfiction narratives like Eli Wiesel's Night. Zusak has done a useful thing by hanging the story on the experience of a German civilian, not a camp survivor, and humanizing the choices that ordinary people had to make in the face of the Führer.

Washington Post - Elizabeth Chang [A]n absorbing and searing narrative.

The Daily Telegraph - Lisa Hilton The suggestion that 40 million people died because of the power of words might seem trite until one recalls the mendacious blabberings of the leaders of a war we are still fighting. The Book Thief depends too much on unnecessary devices to be a great novel, but it is certainly extraordinary, resonant and relevant, beautiful and angry.

The Independent - Marianne Brace This is a moving work which will make many eyes brim. Zusak shows us how small defiances and unexpectedly courageous acts remind us of our humanity. It isn't only Death who is touched. Liesel steals our hearts too.

Booklist - Hazel Rochman 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.

Publisher's Weekly Starred book. This hefty volume is an achievement - a challenging book in both length and subject.

Kirkus Reviews The writing is elegant, philosophical and moving. Even at its length, it's a work to read slowly and savor. Beautiful and important.

The Horn Book Starred. Exquisitely written and memorably populated... A tour de force to be not just read but inhabited.

The Age (Australia) - Peter Pierce A prize-winning children's author, Zusak has made a daring debut as an author of adult fiction .... The Book Thief is a triumph of control, and for the most part of tact, although Death is at liberty to breach any decorum. Its oblique angle on the German homefront never exalts the courage of the young, but quietly tells of how days and months are managed.

Reader Reviews

Cathy
The book thief
The book thief is a poignant and powerful tale a young girl named Liesel growing up in Nazi Germany. This is the kind of book which demands quite a few re-readings and I have discovered a number of microscopic details after each read. Highly ...   Read More

Maddie
speechless
This book was amazing and it really touched my heart.

Destiny
Recommend
Ok, some may say that the writing style is ridiculous, but I believe that is its charm as I’ve yet to find a book written quite as ridiculous with as much as a interesting plot as this one has. The narrator of this story was what solidified this as ...   Read More

kurosu
Amazing!
This is the best historic novel I've read and the perspective is truly amazing! It's a book that made me cry. It's a book that made me think. The metaphorical and figurative language used is remarkable too. Currently my favourite historic novel along...   Read More

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