Just an article on “The Book Thief”

“The Book Thief” movie, directed by Brian Percival, says the story of a curious little girl that changes the lives of everybody around her when she is sent to live with an adopted family. The action happens during The Second World War. The cast consists of the actors Sophie Nelisse (the little girl Liesel), Roger Allam (the narrator), Heike Makatsch (the mother of the girl), Julian Lehmann, Kirsten Block, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson and others.

The moved is based on the book with the same name. “The Book Thief” written by the Australian author Markus Zusak, has been appreciated by the international critics. According to “The New York Times” publication, the book is “the kind of book that can be life-changing, because without ever denying the essential amorality and randomness of the natural order, “The Book Thief” offers us a believable, hard-won hope.”

Published for the first time in 2006, “The Book Thief” received loads of awards and it was at the top of “New York Time Bestseller List” for 230 weeks.

The awards that the book “The Book Thief” received:

• 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (South East Asia & South Pacific)
• 2006 Horn Book Fanfare
• 2006 Kirkus Reviews Editor Choice Award
• 2006 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
• 2006 Publishers Weekly Best Children Book of the Year
• 2006 Booklist ChildrenEditors’ Choice
• 2007 Book Sense Book of the Year
• 2009 Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Master List

Being Australian as his origin, Markus Zusak grew up listening to stories about the Nazis, about the bombing of München and about Jews that were taken through Zusak’s natal city in order to be taken to the camps. He always knew what he wanted to write about. “I have in my mind these images of men marching, with Heil Hitler and the idea that in Germany everybody was thinking the same. But there still were rebel children that didn’t respect the rules and people that would hide the Jews in their homes. So, the Nazist Germany had this side as well”, said Zusak in an interview published in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Me, personally, I enjoyed both of them: the book and the movie, mostly because I am moved by this type of story. I strongly recommend to everyone I know to either watch the movie or read the book; or why not, do both!

With thanks to Ellena Restrick