A devastatingly, haunting story but poetic and beautiful, and a must read for literature lovers...The Book Thief is a story about a German girl named Liesel Meminger during WORLD WAR 2 who was left with her foster parents. Along the way to her new home with her younger brother (who dies even before reaching his destined foster care home); after the funeral, Liesel steals a book(The Gravedigger's Handbook) though she cannot yet read. It's only the first of what will become a series of book thefts. As she settles in with her harsh but caring foster mother, and kind foster father, Liesel gets to know her poor neighborhood and learns to read. Her obsession with books grows as the war closes in, rationing is put in place, air raids begin. This is a lyrical, poignant, heartbreaking, soul-shattering story disjointedly told by a omniscient, haunted by humans narrator- DEATH.