# 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)

- **required** · 8th grade · Ohio — [source: Chagrin Falls English Department Reading List 2025-2026 - CFMS Advanced English Grade 8 - 3rd quarter all-read](https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/2683/CFMS/5742827/READING_LIST_2025-2026.pdf)
- **recommended** · 9th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 9-10 exemplar](https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/standards-instruction/appendix-b-text-exemplars-and-sample-performance-tasks.pdf)

### Summer reading lists

- **recommended** · 9th grade · Massachusetts — [source: Middleborough High School (MA) — Summer Reading 2025, choose one per incoming grade](https://www.midlib.org/sites/midlib.org/files/images/MHS%20Summer%20Reading%202025.pdf)
- **recommended** · 9th grade · Michigan — [source: Michigan ELA Standards — Holocaust cross-curricular](https://www.michigan.gov/mde)

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