The Book Thief: Final Review

SPOILER ALERT: If you've not yet finished The Book Thief and you're one of those people who hates it when people give away the ends of books, skip this review.

Human beings are a frightening and incomprehensible bunch.

This, at least, is Death's final assessment of humanity in Markus Zusack's The Book Thief. The Grim Reaper, having witnessed both the worst examples of hateful human behavior (in Hitler and Nazi Germany) and also the best that humanity has to offer (in the Hubermanns' sacrifices for Max), ends his story with the words, "I am haunted by humans."

This haunting (which is a wonderful reversal -- Death afraid of humans instead of the other way around) seems to stem from Death's recognizing the inconsistent and indefinable nature of humanity.

How can it be, Death implies in his tale, that a people so capable of nobility and kindness and sacrifice can also be so capable of absolute hatred and evil?

For example, consider this description Death gives us of Jews being murdered in gas chambers at Auschwitz:

"When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth. They just kept feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower" (349).

And then, on the next page, Death makes an important observation, directed at his readers:

"They were Jews, and they were you" (350).

They were human, Death says, and yet, other humans did this to them. Other humans caused this holocaust and let these murders happen.

All of this gives special meaning to one of Death's earlier statements:

"You want to know what I look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror" (307).

Death knows that at times he is simply an agent of humans, and the face of Death really is the face of mankind.

And yet, Death also knows that humans are so definitely capable of kindness.

For example, when Death comes to collect the soul of an Allied pilot whose plane has crashed, he witnesses this:

"[Rudy] reached into his toolbox again and searched through some picture frames to pull out a small, stuffed yellow toy."

"Carefully, he climbed to the dying man."

"He placed the smiling teddy bear cautiously onto the pilot's shoulder. The tip of its ear touched his throat."

"The dying man breathed it in. He spoke. In English, he said, 'Thank you.'"

And while Rudy's kindness should seem to soften Death's attitude towards humanity, it only makes humans even more incomprehensible. Death is haunted by humans because they are so immensely unpredictable. Humans are both noble and despicable, both giving and hateful, both great and selfish. What makes us either good or evil is a mystery, and nothing rings so hauntingly as an incomplete answer to the mystery of human nature. Are we good? Evil? Cruel? Kind? Pathetic? Divine? Not even Death knows.

But that's only half the brilliance of The Book Thief. The rest is this:

Death's final words -- "I am haunted by humans" -- are more than just a declaration. They're also an invitation. Because I've read Death's story, I've also seen the mystery of human nature. I've also seen both the god-like and the evil sides of humanity, and so in Death's final words, he invites me to recognize the mystery and be haunted with him.

And I am.

That's why The Book Thief is spectacular.

The Book Thief WWADY Rating = 9/10

The Book Thief: Young Adult Literature?

For the past few years, I've subscribed to The ALAN Review, a journal published by The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents. As their name suggests, The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents isn't really an organization for adolescents. After all, what thirteen-year-old would want to tell their friends they belong to an "assembly"? To do so would only conjure images of stodgy old British folks sitting around in leather chairs wearing black robes and pre-colonial wigs.

"No," our nation's teenagers would rightly say, "but thank you."

What's more, The ALAN Review includes articles with titles like these:

• "From Basketball to Barney: Teen Fatherhood, Didacticism, and the Literary in Young Adult Fiction"
• "Critiques and Controversies of Street Literature: A Formidable Literary Genre"
• "Adding a Disability Perspective When Reading Adolescent Literature: Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian"

As you certainly already know, vocabulary words like "genre" and "didacticism" and "critique" scream to any adolescent, "STOP READING ME NOW AND GO TEXT SOMEBODY."

But, despite its academic snobbishness (ahem), The ALAN Review does provide a valuable service to parents and teachers. Other articles have titles like, "Reaching Reluctant Readers" and "Books for Boys." Overall, I've found The ALAN Review to be a fabulous resource in helping me find books for my students and children and, mostly, myself.

The one thing, however, I've never found in The ALAN Review (or anywhere else for that matter) is a decent definition of young adult literature, which brings me to the question The Book Thief (a supposedly young adult book) has me pondering today. Here it is:

Is The Book Thief really "young adult literature" and what does that term even mean anyway?

I've been exploring this question for a long time now, and through my study of young adult literature and through various conversations I've had with a good friend who's a professor of young adult literature, I've determined that there are two dominant and largely unstated definitions of young adult literature in the literary world today. Neither of them, however, seems to be very good. In fact, they both seem to be pretty belittling to young people.

DEFINITION #1: YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND EASY, SIMPLE, OR TRASHY BOOKS

The first definition I see of young adult literature looks something like this:

"Any literature we adults would like to read but don't necessarily want associated with us because, after all, grown-ups are grown-ups and a lot of this literature is just too short, too simple, or too trashy."

I think this definition is why books like Twilight end up getting the young adult label slapped on them despite the fact that their readership is made up primarily of adult women. A lot of adults are uncomfortable reading cheap, sloppily-written, lit-candy. But if they can call their lit-candy "young adult," they never really have to acknowledge that the book is part of their own world. They can see the book as a part of some other universe, one they explore, but never inhabit.

Practically speaking, the young adult label lets insecure adults say things like, "I'm only reading this to see if it would be appropriate for little Jennifer" or "I'm reading this to stay in touch with young people." To these folks, I'd say this:

Please. We see through you. So do book publishers, but they're quite happy slapping a young adult label on something if it'll make you more comfortable buying it.

TANGENT: I know by calling Twilight "cheap, sloppily-written lit-candy" I've invited the scorn of the masses. Bring it on. I'm ready for it, and I can take it.

The result of this definition is that a lot of the shorter or easier or trashier literature on the market ends up being sold as young adult literature, not because young adults enjoy short, easy trash any more than adults, but because adults (the people who buy books) want to read short, easy trash without having to claim it.

I should clarify here that I don't believe by any stretch that The Book Thief is trashy. It is, however, written in simple, accessible prose. It has pictures. It's full of breaks and white space. So, when deciding whether this book was an adult book or a young adult book, what impact might these details have had?

DEFINITION #2: YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE AND CHARACTER

The second definition I see of young adult literature looks something like this:

"Literature in which a typically adolescent main character experiences a coming of age."

This definition seems flawed to me for two reasons. First, it's far too broad. Arguably, every story is a coming of age story. Characters grow and evolve. Without this growth, literature becomes stagnant, and stagnant stories are typically bad stories.

Second, because this definition is so broad, it also ignores content. The assumption that books about young adults are for young adults is silly.

After all, Romeo and Juliet is a story about asolescents, but I'd argue that it's not even remotely for adolescents. Romeo and Juliet isn't even a love story (sorry, Taylor Swift). Romeo and Juliet is a story about bad parenting, and Shakespeare has far more to teach parents in Romeo and Juliet, I'd argue, than he has to teach adolescents. Yet, we thrust Romeo and Juliet onto young people and tell them it's a love story simply because the main characters are young.

Which all brings me back to my original questions:

Why is The Book Thief being called a young adult novel? What is young adult literature? When is a book more appropriate for young people, and when is it more appropriate for adults?

Your thoughts?

The Book Thief: Opening Questions

In teaching college, I've learned that sometimes the best way to begin a book discussion is simply by throwing out a few genuine questions and seeing what comes of them. So, to begin our discussion of The Book Thief, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Here are a couple of questions that have been banging around in my head as I've been reading this book. If you have any answers, please feel free to share. Even better, I'd love to see what questions about this book you have roaming around in your heads, so feel free to drop those in the comments.

Here goes:

QUESTION 1: Why would Zusak choose to make Death the narrator of this story? The most interesting narrators are, I think, narrators that evolve and change simply through telling their tales (think Nick from The Great Gatsby or Ishmael from Moby Dick).

For these storytellers, the very act of storytelling transforms them in some important way. It gives them heightened morality or answers to their own personal problems, so is it possible that Death could evolve through his telling of Leisel's story? Death is supposed to be constant and unchanging, and yet in this book, Death seems terribly sad (and bored). He longs for something. Perhaps this is coldhearted of me, but so far, I'm more interested in what's going to happen to Death and how he's going to change than I am interested in Leisel. Why make Death a storyteller? What is that achieving?

QUESTION 2: What am I supposed to make of the strange interludes? You know, these things:

* * * A QUESTION * * *

What's up with these things

in the middle of the story?

I'm not sure I like these things. True, they make the book easy to read. ("Hey, I cruised through that page in no time!) But they're kind of getting in the way. Each time I encounter one, I'm reminded that I'm reading a book. For just a moment, I see the page instead of the story (that probably makes no sense), and when I'm into a story, I don't like to be distracted. I'm not sure what to make of them yet.

QUESTION 3: Why is Death so interested in colors? I've always figured Death to be a very black and white kind of thing. Again, I'm more interested in Death so far than Leisel, and his fascination with colors intrigues me. What should I do with that? Do specific colors mean specific things?

Well, there they are - a few of the questions I've been working through so far. No answers yet. Just questions, but I think that's a good place to start.

So, as you're reading The Book Thief, what questions are you thinking about?

Announcing April's Featured Book

This Friday we'll wrap up our reading of March's featured book, Unaccustomed Earth, so it's time to announce the book we'll be featuring in April. (Drum roll, please.)

As April's a time for youth and all that energetic kind of stuff, I'd like to use April to make a foray into young adult literature.

But as I live in Idaho and it snowed last night and spring may still be weeks away, I'm not completely content reading a "springtime book" just yet. In fact, I'm kind of in the mood to read something unusual, something different, something narrated by the Grim Reaper -- by none other than Death himself.

So behold, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. (Cymbal crash!)

The Book Thief, which really is narrated by Death, tells the story of Leisel, an abandoned German girl in 1939. Leisel, surrounded by the horrors of a war-torn world, finds in books a temporary refuge.

The Book Thief has received much critical acclaim, including an award as a Printz Honor Book for 2007. It's also been on the Children's Best Seller list of The New York Times for more than 70 weeks. If you'd like to learn more, read Janet Maslin's review of The Book Thief in The New York Times here.

Zusak, an Australian author, has published six books including the critically acclaimed I Am the Messenger.

We'll begin discussing the book on Friday, April 10th, so dust off those library cards and track down your copy soon.