The Book Thief

Narrated by Death, the story is set in Nazi Germany starting in 1939 and follows Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. When her younger brother dies, Liesel steals her first book, *The Gravedigger's Handbook*, marking the beginning of her 'book thievery' and a love affair with words. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, Hans Hubermann, she learns to read and begins to share her stolen books, including those from a Nazi book-burning and the mayor's wife's library, with her neighbors during air raids. The Hubermanns' world is both opened up and put in mortal danger when they decide to hide a young Jewish man named Max Vandenburg in their basement. The novel explores themes of death, the duality of human kindness and cruelty, and the profound power of words to both comfort and wield power during the darkest of times.

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