The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief is usually shelved in the young adult section at the bookstore and in the library.  In fact, I know of many schools that teach it in the 8^th or 9^th grade.  However, PLEASE do not let that keep you from reading this wonderful novel.  For in The Book Thief, you won’t find a wizard, vampire, or bow and arrow in sight; what you will find is Death as the narrator and one of the most beautifully written (and heartbreaking) books of the modern time.  It is literature….and it is literature at its very best.

Where do I begin with how much I loved this book?  Let’s start with Death, the character who takes on this extraordinary journey, telling us the story of Liesel, a girl growing up in Germany during the Holocaust.  At a young age, Liesel saw her brother die, just as the both of them were on their way to a foster home.  At the cemetery, Liesel picked up her first book…one that fell out of a gravedigger’s pocket.  After a tough beginning, she grew to love her new parents, especially Papa.  When a Jewish man shows up at the door, Mama and Papa take him in to hide in the basement.  Liesel and Max develop a friendship that’s based on their love of words.  Max even paints over his copy of Mein Kampf (yes, a Jewish man had the book but used it for a completely different purpose), turning an absolutely hated book into something completely different. 

Throughout the story, Death shows us all of Liesel’s relationships during one of the most tragic times in history.  Zusak does this in the most imaginative way; Death, knowing everything that is going to happen, often tells us the ending first in the most shocking matter-of-fact way.  Only then does he go back to fill in the blanks of what happened.  Of course, most of us hate when someone tells us the ending before we even read the story, but I promise you, in Zusak’s magical hands, it works beautifully.

Between the lyrical language and heartbreaking content, Zusak has written one of the most powerful books I have ever read.  It will stay with me for a long time.

MY RATING - 5

In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson)

It’s not always the easiest task to review a work of nonfiction. While with fiction, the reviewer can concentrate on how interesting the characters and plot developments are, she can’t do that with nonfiction. Every word Larson writes is true and well researched using a plethora of sources. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin tells the story of an American ambassador who was one of the only ones who recognized the unprecedented danger of the Fuhrer. When he tried to tell his colleagues back home as well as President Roosevelt, he wasn’t taken seriously enough for the terrible damage to be contained.

Ask almost anyone if they have ever heard of William Dodd, and chances are, they will look at you with a blank stare. But he was a very important historical figure, acting as the American ambassador to Germany during the rise of the Nazi regime. Larson tells the story of Dodd’s surprising ascent to the role, like a fish out of water, and the family’s eventual move to Berlin. Once there, the reader is taken deeply into the terrifying regime, where names like Hitler, Goebbels, Goring, Himmler, and Diels made their unfathomable marks in history. Today in the modern day, one cannot understand why things weren’t done to overthrow the government and deal with the unimaginable injustices, but Larson explores why many German people and foreign leaders just accepted the status quo…some even going so far as to glorify Hitler.

The best nonfiction books delve thoroughly into the subject matter without disrespecting their subjects. Larson does a masterful job at this, never spoon feeding his readers or mincing words. This is a story that deserves to be told, and the author does a masterful job at it.

MY RATING - 4

Auf Wiedersehen: World War II Through the Eyes of a German Girl (Christa Holder Ocker)

As a teacher, I was extremely interested in reading this book. I thought it would be a quick read and something that I could use with my students during our unit on World War II. I was mistaken on both of these counts.

Ms. Ocker is "Christa", telling the story of her childhood in Germany during the collapse of the Third Reich. It begins with her family being forced out of their comfortable home in Gorlitz and made to move to a boardinghouse in Apolda. Christa tries to have a normal childhood with puppet shows and puppy love crushes. Getting to America is their goal where new opportunities abound. There are a few profound passages where Christa intersperses what she is doing on any given day compared to what is going on in the concentration camps in other parts of the country.

This book is definitely not for children, as some descriptions are in graphic gratuitous detail. While I wanted to like this book, I felt like it was better served as a private journal. Ms. Ocker wanted us to know what life was like as a German girl during World War II. She succeeded in that fact. However, I felt like she was trying to make the reader feel sympathy for her for having to eat horse meat and for giving up her favorite puppet to a Russian soldier. Knowing the atrocities that Jewish people faced in concentration camps, I personally found this difficult to do.

MY RATING - 2

This review can also be found at www.bookloons.com.