The Book Thief

The Book Thief (December 2007) is a young adult novel by Australian author Markus Zusak. Other titles by Zusak include Underdogs (1999), I am the Messenger (2002), and Bridge of Clay (2018). All his works have received multiple literary prizes and reader’s choice awards from countries around the world.

When first published, The Book Thief became a #1 New York Times bestseller and was a nominee of PBS’s The Great American Read as one of America’s best-loved novels. It became a motion picture in 2013, starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson. The novel is intended for readers 12 and up and is categorized as Teen and Young Adult Holocaust Historical Fiction and Teen and Young Adult Military Historical Fiction.

Because the author’s heritage is German / Austrian, and his parents emigrated to Sydney during the 1950s, readers have speculated that The Book Thief might be a family biography. However, Zusak claims that he only borrowed from the tales his parents told about the war years in Germany.

The Book Thief is set in the Munich suburb of Molching, Germany, during the wartime years of 1939 to 1944. It is narrated from the

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