Each fall and spring, Chicago residents come together to read a selected book as part of the Chicago Public Library’s “One Book One Chicago.”
It is a time during which the city is united by art and the written word. This fall, a striking tale has been chosen; it binds humanity and reaches into the depths of the past.
“The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak, follows the life of a young girl named Liesel Meminger and it narrated by a personified form of death. Liesel is living with her foster parents in Germany during the time of the Holocaust. When her father takes a Jewish man into hiding, her world blooms. She begins to absorb the reality of the time in which she is living in and uses literature to guide her way through pain, friendship, destruction and coming-of-age.
Zusak’s novel is a beautiful culmination of time, trauma, and good feeling. It bridges an age gap that inhibits certain audiences from books, molding a tale that is informative and awakening for both children and adults. It has much to teach both the young and the old alike; it universality compromises nothing.
“I thought that “The Book Thief” was much different than any other young adult novel I’ve ever read,” Said Micki Burton, a sophomore English major. “It definitely transcended age and didn’t feel patronizing. Zusak’s use of death as the narrator created a novel unlike any I’ve ever read before, and it presented a new and interesting take on mortality, specifically as it relates to World War