¡Hola, amigos! En esta ocasión quiero compartir con ustedes mi opinión acerca de un libro maravilloso que acabo de terminar de leer en compañía de mi mamá y mi hermana (solemos leer en familia, aunque mi papá prefiere leer en su habitación porque dice que así disfruta mejor la experiencia). Anteriormente ya había visto la película, pero definitivamente que leer el libro fue una experiencia mucho mejor. Se trata de La Ladrona de Libros.

Hello, friends! This time I want to share with you my opinion about a wonderful book that I just finished reading with my mom and sister (we usually read as a family, although my dad prefers to read in his room because he says he enjoys the experience better). I had previously seen the movie, but reading the book was definitely a much better experience. It is The Book Thief.

The story begins with the train journey of a mother and her two children, to a house where they will receive the children, unfortunately she will have to give them up because she can not take care of their maintenance and to make matters worse she has to flee because of her ideals, since she is a communist.

During the trip, Liesel's younger brother dies, something that leaves the girl with a trauma. During the boy's burial, Liesel steals his first book "The Gravedigger's Manual" even though she still can't read, she did it because she felt it was the only connection she had with her brother, whom she left at the cemetery.

Finally, Liesel is transferred to a house in Molching where she is received by Rosa and Hans Hubermann, her new foster parents. Rosa is a hard woman, with a strong character but deep down a good person, Hans is a very sweet man and with a lot of patience he teaches Liesel to read, using "The Gravedigger's Manual", he also stays with her at night to contain her when she has nightmares.

Little by little Liesel gets used to her new home and her new parents, she also meets Rudy, a very peculiar boy who falls in love with her, he is obsessed with looking like a famous American professional runner named Jesse Owens, the problem is that this runner is black, something unacceptable for the racist Nazi society of the time. Liesel and Rudy become accomplices and begin to steal around the neighborhood (usually fruit) as food rationing had intensified because of the war. But what Liesel enjoys most is stealing books from the mayor's library, although she later discovers that the mayor's wife leaves the library window open so that Liesel can go in and take the books she wants.

Eventually, the Hubermanns receive at home a very dangerous guest, (not because he is aggressive, but because he is a Jew) the family decides to take the risk and hides Max (the Jew) in the basement of the humble house, and soon, he and Liesel strike up a beautiful friendship that makes them feel like brothers.

As he obviously cannot leave the basement, she describes the outside world to him: the weather, the people and everything that happens, but unfortunately the cold German winter makes the young man sick, which is why the Hubermanns decide to move him to Liesel's room (at even greater risk). She doesn't want him to die, so she reads to him while he's unconscious and constantly gives him words of encouragement.

Fortunately, Max recovers soon after, but then decides to leave the house so that the Hubermanns don't have any more problems, something that makes Liesel very sad. Some time later she finds the young man among a group of Jewish prisoners who are taken to the Dachau concentration camp and this ends up destroying her emotionally.

The war is becoming more and more evident in places where its onslaught was hardly felt, the bombing intensifies in the town of Molching and finally takes the neighbors of Himmelstrasse by surprise, while Liesel was in the basement reading a precious book that Max had left written for her.... I won't tell you the ending in case you haven't read the book or seen the movie and you don't like spoilers

Image taken by my LGK4 Lite cell phone.

Image taken by my LGK4 Lite cell phone.

"The Book Thief" is a wonderful work of the Australian author Markus Zusak that in a short time became a best seller and the truth is that after reading it I realized the reason why it received such good reviews. First of all I liked the fact that it was narrated from the point of view of death itself (Yes, it's the narrator) and this seems appropriate because at the end of the day death is the great protagonist of wars.

In this book death isn't represented with the typical image that we humans usually invent about it (a bony and cruel being, dressed in a black robe and carrying a scythe) in fact it makes fun of that image in a text...

"I wear neither sickle, nor scythe, only when it's cold do I wear a hooded habit, and I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem so fond of foisting on me, though from a distance do you want to know what I really look like? I'll help you, go get a mirror while I go on."

Another thing I loved were the illustrations by Trudy White, especially the ones depicting the beautiful book Max wrote for Liesel.

Image taken by my LGK4 Lite cell phone.

"The Tree of Words" was the name of this fantastic book where Max explains in a simple way so that Liesel can understand, how all that hatred that revolved around the Jews began, he narrates how Hitler cultivated his words until they became immense trees.

The illustrations help us get more into the story.

Image taken by my LGK4 Lite cell phone.

I like the evolution of the characters, it doesn't happen quickly or slowly, but at the right moment. It's wonderful to discover the tenderness that Rosa Hubermann really keeps inside, under that grumpy woman facade, I like to see how little by little Liesel realizes that in reality she is also in love with Rudy and also when she discovers that she should not be so hard with the mayor's wife.

And finally, another aspect of the book that I loved was that I was able to learn some German words, since death, as the narrator, offers us some of the words used by the characters, accompanied by their translation.

Well, friends, that's all for today, I hope you liked my analysis, I urge you to read this wonderful book if you have the opportunity because you will not regret it.

Image designe by me in canva