“Sometimes I imagined how everything looked above those clouds, knowing without question that the sun was blond, and the endless atmosphere was a giant blue eye.”

I am going to talk about a lovely book thief that I met few days back. The Book Thief is an interesting girl, Liesel Merminger, a native of Munich, Germany. As curiosity-arousing the title is, so is the book.

The book is set in the bygone era of the World Wars and the Nazis. And, there is Liesel who apparently had been given away to her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, after having lost her brother. Amidst the chaos she goes through, an illiterate Liesel finds solace in books. This compels her to steal books for which there are absolutely no regrets about. She tries to hide this from everyone but one fine day, her father comes to know of her habit and helps her with reading and writing. Liesel loves it when Hans reads out the chapters from the books she stole in the midnight.

“But it’s hard to keep them warm when the souls still shiver.”

Then there are accounts of the ongoing rage between the Jews and the Nazis among which Liesel and her family have to bear the trauma of the events that follow. Towards the end, we see Liesel losing out even her foster parents in addition to the Jewish best friend she found in Max. This tragic end also states about her future whereabouts and ends on a very poignant note which goes as – 

“I am haunted by humans.”

A soul-stirring story with an awesome narration, flavoured by the German language at places that makes the read even more engaging.