Bibliofreakblog

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

In the U.S. this book has been marketed as Young Adult, but I heard that Zusak didn’t intend it that way, and in fact that it was marketed as an adult book when it first came out in his native Australia.

It gets me thinking about the genre YA.  I don’t read a lot of it.  Therefore, I’m no expert.  But at the very least, it makes me think what I would and would not give to a child, a middle reader, and a teenager.  

Looking at this book in particular, a teenager would not have a problem reading it.  By that I mean that it’s not a difficult read.  It is a fairly long read, coming in at 552 pages in paperback.  But that’s the way a lot of YA books are leaning–just look at the Harry Potter books.

Then there’s the subject.  WWII is an important part of education.  However, the book is narrated my death–or a death.  He (I’ll just use he, because he struck me as male, though it never says so, and really is probably genderless, yet I’ve come to know the narrator and saying “it” seems so impersonal) is a sort of Grim Reaper, though he is amused by our notion of such an archetype.

There’s some violence in it–descriptions of dead bodies and a soldier getting his legs blown off.  But I think that young people today can handle violent images more than adults give them credit for.  

The thing I was actually surprised at, knowing that this was a YA book, was the language.  There’s quite a bit of “bastard”,” damn” (both the it and God variety) and “asshole” plus some handy new German swear words I picked up.

Of course, you can find these words in some great YA lit–Catcher in the Rye comes to mind.  I myself started swearing around the 3rd grade, which is more or less the main character’s age at the book’s onset.  

The reason I bring this up is because Nicole of Linus’s Blanket wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about putting disclaimers on reviews.  I don’t usually put any disclaimers on reviews–If it’s worth putting a disclaimer on, it’ll show up in my review.  However, I think that YA books might be a little different.  I would hate for a parent to buy this book–or any other–for a teen, thinking that it’s a bona fide YA, and then feel betrayed by the language.  

Personally, I’d still get this book for a teen.  Then again, I don’t object to a lot.  I’m not saying to give them Chuck Palahniuk, but most books I think I are acceptable for mature teens.  

Besides, what’s in a word?  Instead of being distracted by the occasional “dirty” word, to which I have devoted entirely too much time in this review, we should relish the succulent writing in this book.

As I mentioned above, this book is narrated by death.  Zusak captures his voice so all-encompassingly that it almost sounds like someone who didn’t have a fluent grasp of English translated it from another language.  An instance:

Some days Papa told her to get back into bed and wait a minute, and he would return with his accordion and play for her.  Liesel would sit up and hum, her cold toes clenched with excitement.  None had ever given her music before.  She would grin herself stupid, watching the lines drawing themselves down his face and the soft metal of his eyes…

Isn’t that beautiful?  ”No one had ever given her music before” is one of my favorite lines in the whole book.  It breaks language rules of verb usage, as if it is being translated from the idiom of another language.  

And really, the whole book is beautiful.  Sad, but beautiful.  I didn’t cry like I thought I would at the end.  My eyes teared up a bit, but that was it.  This is probably because the narrator had already prepared us for the end, by telling it flat out half way through the book.  Maybe that is part of why this is a good YA book–it’s sort of a prepared sorrow.

If you like this book/author, you might like:

North to Freedom (F) by Anne Holm
The Thirteenth Tale (F) by Diane Setterfield
Sarah’s Key (F) by Tatania de Rosnay
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (F) by Mary Ann Shaffer and  Annie Barrows
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl (CNF) by Ann Frank
Zlata’s Diary (CNF) by Zlata Filipovic
Stolen Voices: Young People’s War Diaries from World War I to Iraq (CNF) by Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger (editors)
Night (F) by Elie Wiesel
Survival in Auschwitz (CNF) by Primo Levi
Fire on the Water: Porgess and the Abyss (F) by Arnost Lustig
The Good War: An Oral History of WWII (NF) by Studs Turkel
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (F) by Tadeusz Borowski
The Zookeeper’s Wife (F) by Diane Ackerman
The Suite Francaise (F) by Irene Nemirovsky
Those Who Save Us (F) by Jenna Blum
Maus (CNF) by Art Spiegelman
The Graveyard Book (F) by Neil Gaiman
Shadow of the Wind (F) by Carlos Luis Zafón
  

Other works by Markus Zusak:

When Dogs Cry (F)
I Am the Messenger (F)
Fighting Ruben Wolfe (F)
The Underdog (F)
Bridge of Clay (F)

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