★《纽约时报》青少年文学排行榜第一名
★美国亚马逊网络书店畅销书榜第一名
★这个故事会改变你的生命。——《纽约时报》评论
人性怎能同时兼如此光明又如此邪恶，在读书与偷书之间、在互助与杀戮之间，展现人性的美好
2006亚马逊网络书店年度选书，荣登《纽约时报》青少年文学排行榜第一名，稳居台湾诚品书店、金石堂网络书店畅销书榜首，足以和《安妮日记》并列经典，感人程度超过《追风筝的人》。
这是一个关于文字如何喂养人类灵魂的独特故事，一个撼动死神的故事。
死神首度以丰富的感情，为读者讲述一个孤单的小女孩，如何藉由阅读的力量，度过人生最艰困的时期。
能让人决定重生的，只有书。这个故事能够改变你的生命。
——《纽约时报》
The Guardian
Unsettling,
thought-provoking, life-affirming, triumphant and
tragic, this is a novel of breath-taking scope, masterfully
told...A
wonderful page-turner.
--This tex
內容簡介：
Starred Review. Grade 9 Up–Zusak has created a work that
deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers.
Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel
Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in
Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class
neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving
fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child
arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet
learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers
Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular
nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing
years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more
stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy,
the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife who has a whole
library from which she allows Liesel to steal, and especially her
foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original
story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to
deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them
forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend
to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the
nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it
deserves. An extraordinary narrative.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley
Public Library, CA
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the
Hardcover edition.
Death, it turns out, is not proud.
The narrator of The Book Thief is many things -- sardonic, wry,
darkly humorous, compassionate -- but not especially proud. As
author Marcus Zusak channels him, Death -- who doesn''t carry a
scythe but gets a kick out of the idea -- is as afraid of humans as
humans are of him.
Knopf is blitz-marketing this 550-page book set in Nazi Germany
as a young-adult novel, though it was published in the author''s
native Australia for grown-ups. Zusak, 30, has written several
books for kids, including the award-winning I Am the Messenger.
The book''s length, subject matter and approach might give early
teen readers pause, but those who can get beyond the rather
confusing first pages will find an absorbing and searing
narrative.
Death meets the book thief, a 9-year-old girl named Liesel
Meminger, when he comes to take her little brother, and she becomes
an enduring force in his life, despite his efforts to resist her.
"I traveled the globe . . . handing souls to the conveyor belt of
eternity," Death writes. "I warned myself that I should keep a good
distance from the burial of Liesel Meminger''s brother. I did not
heed my advice." As Death lingers at the burial, he watches the
girl, who can''t yet read, steal a gravedigger''s instruction manual.
Thus Liesel is touched first by Death, then by words, as if she
knows she''ll need their comfort during the hardships ahead.
And there are plenty to come. Liesel''s father has already been
carted off for being a communist and soon her mother disappears,
too, leaving her in the care of foster parents: the
accordion-playing, silver-eyed Hans Hubermann and his wife, Rosa,
who has a face like "creased-up cardboard." Liesel''s new family
lives on the unfortunately named Himmel Heaven Street, in a small
town on the outskirts of Munich populated by vivid characters: from
the blond-haired boy who relates to Jesse Owens to the mayor''s wife
who hides from despair in her library. They are, for the most part,
foul-spoken but good-hearted folks, some of whom have the strength
to stand up to the Nazis in small but telling ways.
Stolen books form the spine of the story. Though Liesel''s foster
father realizes the subject matter isn''t ideal, he uses "The Grave
Digger''s Handbook" to teach her to read. "If I die anytime soon,
you make sure they bury me right," he tells her, and she solemnly
agrees. Reading opens new worlds to her; soon she is looking for
other material for distraction. She rescues a book from a pile
being burned by the Nazis, then begins stealing more books from the
mayor''s wife. After a Jewish fist-fighter hides behind a copy of
Mein Kampf as he makes his way to the relative safety of the
Hubermanns'' basement, he then literally whitewashes the pages to
create his own book for Liesel, which sustains her through her
darkest times. Other books come in handy as diversions during
bombing raids or hedges against grief. And it is the book she is
writing herself that, ultimately, will save Liesel''s life.
Death recounts all this mostly dispassionately -- you can tell he
almost hates to be involved. His language is spare but evocative,
and he''s fond of emphasizing points with bold type and centered
pronouncements, just to make sure you get them how almost
endearing that is, that Death feels a need to emphasize anything.
"A NICE THOUGHT," Death will suddenly announce, or "A KEY WORD."
He''s also full of deft descriptions: "Pimples were gathered in peer
groups on his face."
Death, like Liesel, has a way with words. And he recognizes them
not only for the good they can do, but for the evil as well. What
would Hitler have been, after all, without words? As this book
reminds us, what would any of us be?
關於作者：
Markus Zusak is the author of I Am the Messenger, winner of
the Children''s Book Council Book of the Year in Australia, Fighting
Ruben Wolfe, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, and Getting the
Girl. The author lives in Sydney, Australia.
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