Autumn sent me a couple of books a little over a year ago. Sheryl and I first read The Secret Life of Bees. We read so many things, sometimes taking a break from big novels to read short stories. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I sat down to read The Book Thief.
Aubey really called this one right. It is a powerful novel about a nine-year-old girl who is given into foster care in 1939 -- in Germany. Her tender relationship with her foster father is moving. He had been saved by a Jewish friend back during "The Great War," and had promised that family that, if they ever needed anything, he stood ready to help them. When the second war starts, he unhesitatingly takes in the young adult son of the man who had save him. The young Jew and the old foster father help the girl become an accomplished reader and a fine writer.
As the war gets closer to their tiny town, she and her best friend, Rudy, have to do a lot of serious thinking for two kids just entering their teens. Lots of neighbors aren't coming home from places like Stalingrad. Soon the allied bombers are no longer confining their munitions to Munich and other big cities. Soon their own little street with its many personalities is a repeatedly attacked target. By the time she is fourteen, she is getting to know the first person narrator very well, indeed. And the narrator is the angel of death.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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