‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak

  A tale of life in Nazi Germany, told by the voice of Death?
  Wait, before you keep scrolling!
  “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak, published in 2006, won several awards in the “young adult” fiction category, but is only now beginning to get the buzz it deserves.
  Who’s buzzing, or should be, about this marvelous book?
  Readers, folks who love little girls (or who have been one), people who value intellectual freedom, musicians, soccer players, and those who read, and re-read, a beautiful turn of phrase.
  Intrigued yet?
  Liesl Memminger goes to live with foster parents, the Hubermans, in war-torn Germany. In many ways a normal little girl, she helps her mama deliver washing and ironing to well-to-do neighbors, defends herself in the schoolyard and has the more-than-occasional nightmare. Liesl is consumed with the desire to learn to read.
  Her papa, the house painter Hans Huberman, not a highly educated man himself, helps with the endeavor despite the dearth of reading material, and here begins the absorbing story.
  The Hubermans, also a seemingly average couple, repay a debt of honor to the family of a soldier friend who had saved Hans Huberman’s life in the previous World War, and thereby provide both the scary conflict and a beautiful, even poetic surprise for their foster daughter, Liesl.