# The Book Thief

**Author:** Markus Zusak
**Lexile:** 730L
**Grade range:** Grades 8–11
**Age range:** 13–17
**First published:** 2005
**Page count:** 552
**Genre:** Historical Fiction
**ISBN-13:** `9780375842207`
**ISBN-10:** `0375842209`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-book-thief
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Narrated by Death, the novel follows Liesel, a young German girl in a foster family in Nazi Germany, who steals books, learns to read, and hides a Jewish man in her basement. Zusak's novel appears on middle-school and high-school Holocaust-study reading lists across multiple state DOE frameworks.

## Themes

- Holocaust
- courage
- the power of words
- friendship
- loss

## Content notes

- war violence
- death
- Holocaust depictions

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 13+

## Where this book is assigned

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 9th grade · Michigan — [source: Michigan ELA Standards — Holocaust cross-curricular](https://www.michigan.gov/mde)

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